tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88443190673303797422019-01-21T01:43:02.914-08:00The Ginger (Law) LibrarianJamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.comBlogger738125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-21480828026664567262018-11-09T13:05:00.002-08:002018-11-09T13:05:51.334-08:00Error of the Day & Maintaining Integrity of Algorithmic Results<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NFi_SASkzqA/W-X2iK6lMXI/AAAAAAAAE4k/v-lrKnaymlwBSs9ZIoc8vc9XK-AMX17fACLcBGAs/s1600/error-100700406-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="700" height="160" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NFi_SASkzqA/W-X2iK6lMXI/AAAAAAAAE4k/v-lrKnaymlwBSs9ZIoc8vc9XK-AMX17fACLcBGAs/s320/error-100700406-large.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>If you're into algorithms, you should absolutely subscribe to the <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/newsletters/the-algorithm/" target="_blank">MIT Technology Review newsletter called The Algorithm</a>.<br /><br />Earlier this week, the folks at The Algorithm asked "what is AI, exactly?" The answer is reproduced below.<br /><br /><i>The question may seem basic, but the answer is kind of complicated.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>In the broadest sense, AI refers to machines that can learn, reason, and act for themselves. They can make their own decisions when faced with new situations, in the same way that humans and animals can.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>As it currently stands, the vast majority of the AI advancements and applications you hear about refer to a category of algorithms known as machine learning. These algorithms use statistics to find patterns in massive amounts of data. They then use those patterns to make predictions on things like what shows you might like on Netflix, what you’re saying when you speak to Alexa, or whether you have cancer based on your MRI.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Machine learning, and its subset deep learning (basically machine learning on steroids), is incredibly powerful. It is the basis of many major breakthroughs, including <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/525586/facebook-creates-software-that-matches-faces-almost-as-well-as-you-do/?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&amp;utm_campaign=b0341ff20f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_08_10_16&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_997ed6f472-b0341ff20f-156715389" target="_blank">facial recognition</a>, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610253/the-ganfather-the-man-whos-given-machines-the-gift-of-imagination/?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&amp;utm_campaign=b0341ff20f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_08_10_16&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_997ed6f472-b0341ff20f-156715389" target="_blank">hyper-realistic photo and voice synthesis</a>, and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/03/googles-ai-wins-first-game-historic-match-go-champion/?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&amp;utm_campaign=b0341ff20f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_08_10_16&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_997ed6f472-b0341ff20f-156715389" target="_blank">AlphaGo</a>, the program that beat the best human player in the complex game of Go. But it is also just a tiny fraction of what AI could be.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>The grand idea is to develop something resembling human intelligence, which is often referred to as “artificial general intelligence,” or “AGI.” Some experts believe that machine learning and deep learning will eventually get us to AGI with enough data, but most would agree there are big missing pieces and it’s still a long way off. AI may have mastered Go, but in other ways it is still much <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/544606/can-this-man-make-ai-more-human/?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&amp;utm_campaign=b0341ff20f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_08_10_16&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_997ed6f472-b0341ff20f-156715389" target="_blank">dumber than a toddler.</a></i><br /><i><br /></i><i>In that sense, AI is also aspirational, and its definition is constantly evolving. What would have been considered AI in the past may not be considered AI today.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Because of this, the boundaries of AI can get really confusing, and the term often gets mangled to include any kind of algorithm or computer program. We can thank Silicon Valley for constantly inflating the capabilities of AI for its own convenience.</i><br /><i><br /></i>It's good to be reminded of this definition as we contend with the latest releases of the legal research databases as the databases continuously tweak their underlying algorithms -- the latest being <a href="https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/westlaw/edge" target="_blank">Westlaw Edge.</a><br /><br />With Westlaw Edge comes a revised "WestSearch Plus."<br /><br /><i>Introducing the next generation of legal search. Get superior predictive research suggestions as you start typing your legal query in the global search bar.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>WestSearch Plus applies state-of-the-art AI technologies to help you quickly address legal questions for thousands of legal topics <b>without needing to drill into a results list.</b></i><br /><i><b><br /></b></i>We're starting to see a time when the <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/10/algorithms-fake-news-google-generation.html" target="_blank">Google Generation</a> is already predisposed to not drill into a results list and now the databases are actively&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/01/tech-tuesday-duty-of-tech-in.html" target="_blank">advocating for the users to blindly rely on the top result</a>&nbsp;in the list.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/10/algorithms-fake-news-google-generation.html" target="_blank">Along with the consequences of fake news on algorithmic results when using Google</a>, for example, we must also be aware of the errors within the legal research databases themselves. To that end, a fellow law librarian, Mary&nbsp;Matuszak, has been collecting the errors that she finds during the legal research process in the various databases and distributes them via the <a href="http://home.olemiss.edu/~noe/llfaq.html" target="_blank">Law-Lib listerv</a> as "Error of the Day."<br /><br />From October 30, 2018:<br />Error of the Day &nbsp;A &nbsp;Lexis typo (possibly scanning error) in &nbsp;Excessiveness of Bail in State Cases, 7 A.L.R.6th 487. &nbsp; The following group of letters is used six times throughout the document, CocainesepBail. &nbsp; A quick look at the Westlaw version shows that it should be Cocaine – Bail<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NSFZa1_VJfs/W-Xx1stvLPI/AAAAAAAAE3I/Q9h7z1NK9ngAFsMTHHUbN3078anuKKwzQCLcBGAs/s1600/image001.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="957" data-original-width="1403" height="272" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NSFZa1_VJfs/W-Xx1stvLPI/AAAAAAAAE3I/Q9h7z1NK9ngAFsMTHHUbN3078anuKKwzQCLcBGAs/s400/image001.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ba2gIAmRbiQ/W-Xx1SDjcVI/AAAAAAAAE3A/wjw7zMMa-YMlEMO_90W4af25P1vrZzUzwCLcBGAs/s1600/image002.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="1358" height="53" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ba2gIAmRbiQ/W-Xx1SDjcVI/AAAAAAAAE3A/wjw7zMMa-YMlEMO_90W4af25P1vrZzUzwCLcBGAs/s400/image002.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_cLjwp0J33E/W-Xx1WYk9nI/AAAAAAAAE3E/Z3hHwnDmpDg_j2lQwsprlQol3WS2dGebgCLcBGAs/s1600/image003.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="1392" height="56" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_cLjwp0J33E/W-Xx1WYk9nI/AAAAAAAAE3E/Z3hHwnDmpDg_j2lQwsprlQol3WS2dGebgCLcBGAs/s400/image003.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2kG0CJxalKk/W-Xx16m1ZLI/AAAAAAAAE3M/DGLsHB_HN84TOE1BxBQptbuaNikn_orvgCLcBGAs/s1600/image004.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="706" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2kG0CJxalKk/W-Xx16m1ZLI/AAAAAAAAE3M/DGLsHB_HN84TOE1BxBQptbuaNikn_orvgCLcBGAs/s400/image004.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e9ncDfM6NVs/W-Xx2B5RtvI/AAAAAAAAE3Q/yfwqFITynvslX3SN9CcNt6tGd3VhfWEKQCLcBGAs/s1600/image005.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="1600" height="171" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e9ncDfM6NVs/W-Xx2B5RtvI/AAAAAAAAE3Q/yfwqFITynvslX3SN9CcNt6tGd3VhfWEKQCLcBGAs/s400/image005.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MrpLC0EQTlE/W-Xx2QDt9sI/AAAAAAAAE3U/oPFpPMTH0Xk9rhtBx2ZgbgaE9QQCJPwoQCLcBGAs/s1600/image006.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="1035" height="95" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MrpLC0EQTlE/W-Xx2QDt9sI/AAAAAAAAE3U/oPFpPMTH0Xk9rhtBx2ZgbgaE9QQCJPwoQCLcBGAs/s400/image006.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wqQcx9Y7vQw/W-Xx2rqPiWI/AAAAAAAAE3Y/_sLGsPphNIQt6RD2hrh8CEIbyC5ppD6IACLcBGAs/s1600/image007.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="990" height="110" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wqQcx9Y7vQw/W-Xx2rqPiWI/AAAAAAAAE3Y/_sLGsPphNIQt6RD2hrh8CEIbyC5ppD6IACLcBGAs/s400/image007.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">From November 5, 2018:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In the Case People v Kindell, 148 AD3d 456 (1st Dept 2017), Susan Axelrod is listed as both the counsel for the Appellant and the Respondent. &nbsp; The official version, the print, does not list the attorneys.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">[]</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I confirmed with ADA Axelrod that she did not represent the defendant and opposing counsel was not someone with the same name. &nbsp; I also checked the defendant’s brief and it lists Ms. Moser as counsel.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X8gGCBv6B5Q/W-XzoZgewHI/AAAAAAAAE38/W1HxmTkF2n8Vq_3JpofnL-t9LbtFVpNXwCLcBGAs/s1600/image001.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="953" data-original-width="1600" height="237" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X8gGCBv6B5Q/W-XzoZgewHI/AAAAAAAAE38/W1HxmTkF2n8Vq_3JpofnL-t9LbtFVpNXwCLcBGAs/s400/image001.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rmTH06G8HQ8/W-XzoCYytGI/AAAAAAAAE34/T47WYWzCdWY6ATRn3vxqIbIiktB1QGPHQCLcBGAs/s1600/image002.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="1275" height="236" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rmTH06G8HQ8/W-XzoCYytGI/AAAAAAAAE34/T47WYWzCdWY6ATRn3vxqIbIiktB1QGPHQCLcBGAs/s400/image002.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLLfBGfgDCM/W-XzoA5i3bI/AAAAAAAAE30/kCiZoDf7rB4UFGl3nHZHzxb9lOgZA-8FQCLcBGAs/s1600/image003.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="1405" height="286" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLLfBGfgDCM/W-XzoA5i3bI/AAAAAAAAE30/kCiZoDf7rB4UFGl3nHZHzxb9lOgZA-8FQCLcBGAs/s400/image003.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZCmY1B1HJK4/W-Xzo-EvVDI/AAAAAAAAE4A/W_jDM0640W8dCdGFQcQLGzCPmwGK26ORACLcBGAs/s1600/image004.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="1307" height="233" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZCmY1B1HJK4/W-Xzo-EvVDI/AAAAAAAAE4A/W_jDM0640W8dCdGFQcQLGzCPmwGK26ORACLcBGAs/s400/image004.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l3JTjA_55MY/W-XzpC_EYQI/AAAAAAAAE4E/S53yoXBegXkfkNv5TNhi4iy8metzjzEUgCLcBGAs/s1600/image005.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="672" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l3JTjA_55MY/W-XzpC_EYQI/AAAAAAAAE4E/S53yoXBegXkfkNv5TNhi4iy8metzjzEUgCLcBGAs/s400/image005.png" width="303" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TD9pFhRARjo/W-XzpS7wTQI/AAAAAAAAE4I/-XcjCP6NObkNjn25b_IY650rsItJciajQCLcBGAs/s1600/image006.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="513" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TD9pFhRARjo/W-XzpS7wTQI/AAAAAAAAE4I/-XcjCP6NObkNjn25b_IY650rsItJciajQCLcBGAs/s400/image006.png" width="297" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><br />While these errors are seemingly minute individually, the consequences are greater in the aggregate.<br />My own mentor, a law librarian who had been in the profession for 40 years, kept a print file of the errors that he found in the databases while performing legal research. The file was overflowing by the time I saw it roughly 3 years before his retirement.<br /><br />Because an algorithm's results are only as good as the underlying data, as we move toward an algorithmic society that relies heavily on algorithmic decision making, these errors could have consequences on the development of the law.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-77158118283129462262018-11-09T11:48:00.000-08:002018-11-09T13:27:16.120-08:00AALL State of Profession Survey<br /><a href="http://www2.ari-surveys.com/run/aallprofession18/1N1TU3VWMXR8" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="840" height="112" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vqSEEdpg8r8/W-Xjp2h9SfI/AAAAAAAAE20/o_Zr51sELLkSEerrpp7fNQety8fgy8bOQCLcBGAs/s200/ciprstateofprofession.jpg" width="200" /></a>As a member of the <a href="https://www.aallnet.org/about-us/who-we-are/committees-juries/state-profession-advisory-group/" target="_blank">AALL State of the Profession Survey Advisory Group</a>, I am excited that the survey has been released!<br /><br />The Advisory Group is comprised of librarians from all types of law libraries with the purpose of designing a survey to assess the current state of the profession.<br /><i><br /></i><i>The State of the Profession Survey will document the current landscape of law libraries, specific to each library type, and will provide benchmarking in the following areas: Technology, collections and library resources, constituent services, institutional outcomes, research competencies, training, staffing, and leadership.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>The purpose of the State of the Profession Survey is to provide members and their organizations with the information and insights they need to effectively assess, advocate, and strategically prepare for the future.</i><br /><br />We started working on the survey in 2017 with this purpose in mind. In the survey, you will find questions pertaining to the various enumerated areas.<br /><br />While the survey is a little long, there's not a question included without a specific purpose in mind. If we all make a concerted effort to input the data requested, we are confident that we'll have a clearer picture of the current state of the law librarian profession as a whole. And unlike the annual surveys that many of us are currently working on, this is a one-time survey!<br /><br />As noted in a recent email from AALL:<br /><i>The ultimate objective of the survey is to deliver a report to identify, clarify, and support the value of your individual and collective roles. The survey aims to understand the impact of significant challenges we have faced while shining a bright light on our unflagging commitment to delivering outstanding services to our communities and advancing the legal information profession as a whole.</i><br /><br /><b>INSTRUCTIONS</b><br /><br />Separate instruments have been created for academic, government, and private/corporate law libraries. It is estimated that it will take those in director-level roles about 45-60 minutes to complete the survey and respondents in non-director positions approximately 15 minutes.<br /><br /><b>NOTE: You can save your work and return to the survey as time permits. Completed surveys are due by 11:59 p.m. (Central Time) on Friday, December 7.</b><br /><br />START THE SURVEY:<br />Every survey link is unique and ARI is managing participation.<br /><br />If you have not received a survey invitation, please contact ARI at ari@associationresearch.com with this subject line: AALL State of the Profession Survey Request. <br /><br />Be assured that information you provide to ARI will be kept confidential.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-60442019861379796282018-10-27T09:17:00.000-07:002019-01-03T21:20:33.912-08:00Algorithms, Fake News, & The Google Generation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3sO4pn-XGgE/W9SPNWdEygI/AAAAAAAAE0E/bF1SI7Au5T0LhNq7NpXNyDx-BjjlQEhXgCLcBGAs/s1600/fakenews.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1181" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3sO4pn-XGgE/W9SPNWdEygI/AAAAAAAAE0E/bF1SI7Au5T0LhNq7NpXNyDx-BjjlQEhXgCLcBGAs/s320/fakenews.png" width="320" /></a></div>At the <a href="http://orall.org/" target="_blank">Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries</a> (ORALL) Annual Meeting, as I presented on the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/01/tech-tuesday-duty-of-tech-in.html" target="_blank">duty of technology competence in the algorithmic society</a>, an astute law librarian asked (paraphrasing), "how does fake news play into this?" That question gave rise to a flurry of brain activity, as I considered how Google, for example, ranks relevancy, the rise of fake news, and the ability of users to spot fake news sources -- particularly for legal research.<br /><div><br /></div><div><div>As I was presenting to a group of lawyers at a CLE this week, I polled them asking about the electronic resource that they primarily use for legal research. The overwhelming response was Google.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/google1.htm" target="_blank">Google uses</a> a trademarked, proprietary – mostly secret – algorithm called PageRank, which assigns each webpage a relevancy score based on factors, such as:</div><div><ul><li>The frequency and location of keywords within the webpage. If the keyword only appears once within the body of the page, it will receive a low score for that keyword.</li></ul><ul><li>How long the webpage has existed: people create new webpages everyday. Google places more value on pages with an established history</li></ul><ul><li>The number of other webpages that link to the page in question: Google look sat how many webpages link to a particular site to determine its relevance.&nbsp;</li></ul></div><div>Out of these three factors, the third is the most important.&nbsp;</div></div><div><br /></div><div>With the rise of fake news sources and given these factors that we know about Google's relevancy ranking, there's nothing to say that fake news cannot make its way into the top results based on a search query.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Couple this with the shoddy research habits of the "Google Generation" (those born 1993 and after), and you have a recipe for disaster.</div><div><br /></div><div>As noted in my article, <i><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3097250" target="_blank">Beyond the Information Age: The Duty of Technology Competence in the Algorithmic Society</a></i>,<i>&nbsp;[t]here has been some interesting findings about the Google Generation's information behavior. As early as 2008, studies show that “the speed of young people’s web searching means that little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority.” Additionally, “[f]aced with a long list of search hits, young people find it difficult to assess the relevance of the materials presented and often print off pages with no more than a perfunctory glance at them.” Also, “[y]oung scholars are using tools that require little skill: they appear satisfied with a very simple or basic form of searching." In addition to the user habits of the Google Generation, society, in general, has become increasingly comfortable with relying on the top results that an algorithm generates. “<b>[R]esearch indicates that over ninety percent of searchers do not go past page one of the search results and over fifty percent do not go past the first three results on page one.”</b></i></div><div><br /></div><div>These ingrained research habits generally equate with allowing algorithms to do the heavy lifting to decide what is relevant. The user, through hasty searching and vetting of results, has just allowed the algorithm to have a significant role in selecting the content that the algorithm deems should advance the law, even if that information is "fake."&nbsp;</div></div><div><br /></div><div>There is a silver lining in that <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/23/younger-americans-are-better-than-older-americans-at-telling-factual-news-statements-from-opinions/" target="_blank">a recent Pew Research poll suggests</a> that younger people are generally better at spotting fake news sources.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><div><a href="https://www.channelone.com/feature/quiz-can-you-spot-the-fake-news-story/" target="_blank">Along with teaching law students about evaluating resources and spotting fake news</a>, I can't help but wonder, will the algorithms, themselves, get better at spotting fake news in the future?&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><i><a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/10/19/the-future-of-truth-and-misinformation-online/" target="_blank">In summer 2017, Pew Research Center</a> and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center conducted a large canvassing of technologists, scholars, practitioners, strategic thinkers and others, asking them to react to this framing of the issue:</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>The rise of “fake news” and the proliferation of doctored narratives that are spread by humans and bots online are challenging publishers and platforms. Those trying to stop the spread of false information are working to design technical and human systems that can weed it out and minimize the ways in which bots and other schemes spread lies and misinformation.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><b><i>The question: In the next 10 years, will trusted methods emerge to block false narratives and allow the most accurate information to prevail in the overall information ecosystem? Or will the quality and veracity of information online deteriorate due to the spread of unreliable, sometimes even dangerous, socially destabilizing ideas?Respondents were then asked to choose one of the following answer options:</i></b></div><div><ul><li><i>The information environment will improve – In the next 10 years, on balance, the information environment will be IMPROVED by changes that reduce the spread of lies and other misinformation online.</i></li></ul><ul><li><i>The information environment will NOT improve – In the next 10 years, on balance, the information environment will NOT BE improved by changes designed to reduce the spread of lies and other misinformation online.</i></li></ul></div><div><b><i>Some 1,116 responded to this nonscientific canvassing: 51% chose the option that the information environment will not improve, and 49% said the information environment will improve.</i></b></div></div><div><br /></div><div>A recent NYTimes article,&nbsp;<i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/opinion/sunday/ai-fake-news-disinformation-campaigns.html?login=smartlock&amp;auth=login-smartlock" target="_blank">No, A.I. Won’t Solve the Fake News Problem</a></i>, discussed the ability for artificial intelligence (algorithms, here) to solve the problem for us stating, <i>today’s A.I. operates at the “keyword” level, flagging word patterns and looking for statistical correlations among them and their sources. This can be somewhat useful: Statistically speaking, certain patterns of language may indeed be associated with dubious stories. For instance, for a long period, most articles that included the words “Brad,” “Angelina” and “divorce” turned out to be unreliable tabloid fare. Likewise, certain sources may be associated with greater or lesser degrees of factual veracity. The same account deserves more credence if it appears in The Wall Street Journal than in The National Enquirer.&nbsp;<b>But none of these kinds of correlations reliably sort the true from the false.</b> In the end, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie did get divorced. Keyword associations that might help you one day can fool you the next.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>The article goes into much more detail about the ability of algorithms to detect fake news and the limitations of natural language processing. It's a great read.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Ultimately, we cannot rely on algorithms to detect fake news for us. As we train competent attorneys, we must continue to train them to be critical, evaluative users. This will be an increasingly uphill battle as the Google Generation and beyond enters law practice.&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-31844266028323540202018-09-14T12:34:00.000-07:002018-09-14T12:35:08.342-07:00Practitioners Rank Legal Research as Only Top-20 Specific Legal Skill for the "Whole Attorney"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A0ReTeMpfLM/W5wMzN5UgQI/AAAAAAAAEoM/GiNsKTzxk5UWKupYJi7z0ibNR58ioEFuwCLcBGAs/s1600/online-legal-research-tools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="177" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A0ReTeMpfLM/W5wMzN5UgQI/AAAAAAAAEoM/GiNsKTzxk5UWKupYJi7z0ibNR58ioEFuwCLcBGAs/s320/online-legal-research-tools.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i><a href="https://bestpracticeslegaled.albanylawblogs.org/" target="_blank">In a recent survey conducted</a> by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), a wide array of legal employers ranked the legal skills and professional competencies and characteristics that they believe new lawyers most need to succeed. (There is a detailed accounting of the study’s results and an explanation of the study’s role within IAALS’s broader project in the summer <a href="http://www.ncbex.org/pdfviewer/?file=%2Fassets%2Fmedia_files%2FBar-Examiner%2Fissues%2FBE-870218-Online.pdf" target="_blank">2018 edition of The Bar Examiner</a>, pp. 17-26.) The results revealed that legal employers value foundational characteristics and competencies much more than they do foundational legal skills.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><b><br /></b></i><b>The 20 Foundations Identified as Most Necessary in the Short Term for New Lawyers&nbsp;</b><br />• Keep information confidential<br />• Arrive on time for meetings, appointments, and hearings<br />• Honor commitments<br />• Integrity and trustworthiness<br />• Treat others with courtesy and respect<br />• Listen attentively and respectfully<br />• Promptly respond to inquiries and requests<br />• Diligence<br />• Have a strong work ethic and put forth best effort<br />• Attention to detail<br />• Conscientiousness<br />• Common sense<br />• Intelligence<br /><b>• Effectively research the law&nbsp;</b><br />• Take individual responsibility for actions and results<br />• Regulate emotions and demonstrate self-control<br />• Speak in a manner that meets legal and professional standards<br />• Strong moral compass<br />• Write in a manner that meets legal and professional standards<br />• Exhibit tact and diplomacy<br /><br />As noted by The Bar Examiner,<i>&nbsp;[t]<b>he</b></i><b style="font-style: italic;">&nbsp;only specific legal skill that reached the top 20 was legal research.</b><br /><br /><div>What we're seeing is a serious&nbsp;dissonance between what legal educators (and by extension law students) and legal&nbsp;practitioners think are the most important skills for practice. <i>Most law students are graduating from law school thinking that they have the skills necessary to practice as attorneys, but that opinion is not&nbsp;shared by the profession they hope to enter. In one survey, 95 percent of hiring partners and associates believed that recently graduated law students lacked key practical skills at the time of hiring. In another survey, 76 percent of third-year law students believed that they were prepared to practice law “right now,” while only 23 percent of practicing attorneys believed that recent law school graduates were ready to do their jobs.</i><br /><br />Interestingly, <i>the 77 foundations identified [in the IAALS Survey] as necessary for new graduates are largely the same across all workplaces, which means that as we begin to identify the overarching learning outcomes that we can—and should—expect of a legal education, we have at least one common goal: <b>the whole lawyer.</b></i><br /><i><b><br /></b></i>When breaking out just the specific legal&nbsp;skills necessary for practice, the IAALS Survey revealed the&nbsp;following:<br /><b>• Effectively research the law</b><br />• Understand and apply legal privilege concepts<br />• Draft pleadings, motions, and briefs<br />• Identify relevant facts, legal issues, and informational gaps or discrepancies<br />• Document and organize a case or matter<br />• Set clear professional boundaries<br />• Gather facts through interviews, searches, document/file review, and other methods<br />• Request and produce written discovery<br />• Effectively use techniques of legal reasoning and argument (case analysis and statutory interpretation)<br />• Recognize and resolve ethical dilemmas in a practical setting<br />• Conclude relationships appropriately<br />• Critically evaluate arguments<br />• Maintain core knowledge of the substantive and procedural law in the relevant focus area(s)<br />• Prepare client responses<br />• Draft contracts and agreements<br />• Interview clients and witnesses<br /><br />The article goes on to mention the possibility of legal educators and professionals using the information from this survey to <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/05/is-it-time-for-legal-research-component.html" target="_blank">regulate the skills new lawyers truly need when they enter practice</a>.<br /><br />One thing that becomes clearer with every practitioner survey is the <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/the-importance-of-legal-research-skills-for-practice/" target="_blank">importance of legal research skills for practice</a>. Law schools take notice!<br /><br /></div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-72505576387247159222018-09-07T12:01:00.000-07:002018-09-07T12:01:09.755-07:00The Librarians' "Crusade" for Academic Freedom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g0n4jsQmgrU/W5LKxsO39iI/AAAAAAAAEmE/GmbO9BpqRtcPo-5EGh3B9TX3XeGZZ7uOQCLcBGAs/s1600/academic-freedom.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="275" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g0n4jsQmgrU/W5LKxsO39iI/AAAAAAAAEmE/GmbO9BpqRtcPo-5EGh3B9TX3XeGZZ7uOQCLcBGAs/s200/academic-freedom.jpeg" width="159" /></a></div>After recent events at the University of California - Davis, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Do-College-Librarians-Have/244377/#.W4VQPG_n1bo.email" target="_blank">there's been an uproar surrounding college librarians and academic freedom</a>. The uproar was created after a librarian in the UC system used a title for her presentation that an administrator colleague thought might be offensive: "Copy cataloging gets some respect from administrators."<br /><br /><i>Inspired in part by [the librarian's] cautionary tale, the [UC-Davis] union sought to include a provision in the new contract clarifying that librarians have academic freedom.&nbsp;Union representatives proposed in late April a guarantee of academic freedom to all librarians so that they could fulfill responsibilities for teaching, scholarship, and research.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>The union says negotiators for the system rejected the proposal . . . .&nbsp;<b>Claire Doan, a spokeswoman, said UC policies on academic freedom "do not extend to nonfaculty academic personnel, including librarians . . . .</b>"&nbsp;<b>UC negotiators said in July that academic freedom was "not a good fit" for the librarians’ unit</b>, according to the union. They argued, the union said, that academic freedom is for instructors of record and students when they are in the classroom or conducting related research.</i><br /><br />After the UC system said that the policies on academic freedom do not extend to librarians, <i>[t]he librarians’ [ensuing] crusade has drawn support in the form of a petition signed by about 650 people, including librarians and faculty members from Skidmore College, in New York, to the University of Oregon to the University of West Georgia.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />It's heartwarming to see the strong support for the librarians across the country with the strongest support arguably coming from the chair of the American Association of University Professors’ committee on academic freedom and tenure. <i>Hank Reichman wrote for the AAUP’s Academe blog that the UC negotiators "are wrong" to say their position [against academic freedom for librarians] aligns with the AAUP’s.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>The AAUP has previously said librarians and faculty members have the same professional concerns, calling academic freedom "indispensable" to librarians because they ensure the availability of information to teachers and students. <b>"The language proposed by UC-AFT is, therefore, totally consistent with long-accepted principles in the academic and library communities, including with the principles of academic freedom as defined for over a century by the AAUP," </b>he wrote.<b> "The University of California is well advised to accept this sensible proposal."</b></i><br /><br />In a past post, I discussed&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/12/law-librarian-status-academic-freedom.html" target="_blank">law librarian status and academic freedom</a>. In that post, I mentioned that our lack of academic freedom is particularly difficult<i> because we are not protected to fully engage with and advance our field. A field that is wrongly pegged as supplementary or secondary.</i><br /><br /><i>In the era of big-data algorithms with no accountability and the "fake news" phenomenon, librarians must tackle tough, controversial subjects that affect information. </i>This aligns with Reichman's assessment that academic freedom is indispensable to librarians because we ensure the availability of information to teachers and students.<br /><i><br /></i>And while it's absolutely true that we ensure the availability of information to teachers and students, we're also engaged in our own niche field that must have the protection of academic freedom to move forward and engage in meaningful conversations.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-82356254814988555362018-08-17T09:31:00.001-07:002018-08-17T09:31:15.286-07:00AI in Teaching; AI in Law<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7RDZBzPHbKM/W3b4M7zRXAI/AAAAAAAAEho/zsbcudAwI6g3l8NiWzqEjNjoRfYD7FAEACLcBGAs/s1600/main-qimg-c816fe66c189c16cb481b47d3b610cd7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7RDZBzPHbKM/W3b4M7zRXAI/AAAAAAAAEho/zsbcudAwI6g3l8NiWzqEjNjoRfYD7FAEACLcBGAs/s200/main-qimg-c816fe66c189c16cb481b47d3b610cd7.jpg" width="200" /></a>The <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Artificial-Intelligence-Is/244231" target="_blank">Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an article</a> discussing how artificial intelligence is changing teaching (sub. req'd). The discussion centered around many of the same themes that we see when discussing artificial intelligence in law.<br /><br />The CHE article asks the common questions: <i>When you’ve got artificial intelligence handling work that is normally done by a human, how does that change the role of the professor? And what is the right balance of technology and teaching?</i> Replace "professor" and "teacher" for "lawyer" and "lawyering," and you get the idea.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2016/12/ai-as-premature-law-librarian-disruptor.html" target="_blank">Like the augmenting argument for law</a>, the argument for teaching goes:<i> They automate some of teaching’s routine tasks, so that professors can do what no machine can — challenge and inspire students to gain a deeper understanding of what they’re learning.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />And just like the argument that <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3097250" target="_blank">law will become increasingly reliant on AI raising privacy and ethical concerns</a>, so goes the argument for teaching: <i>But skeptics worry that if education is increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence and automated responses, it will put technology in the driver’s seat and prompt formulaic approaches to learning. Some of the algorithms used in AI-driven tools are built on large data sets of student work, raising privacy and ethical questions.&nbsp;</i>The CHE article also raises issues with the proprietary nature of the algorithms limiting the professors' understanding of how the tools make decisions.<br /><br />What we're seeing here are the common issues that arise when artificially intelligent agents encroach on knowledge work.<br /><br />On a practical level, the following tools represent examples of AI being in teaching:<br /><ul><li>Adaptive Courseware: <i>With adaptive courseware, students first encounter material outside of class, often through short video lessons and readings. They take quizzes that assess their understanding of the material and, depending on the results, the courseware either advances them to the next lesson or provides supplemental instruction on concepts they don’t yet grasp. Advocates say this lets students study at their own pace and frees up the instructor’s time in class to shore up students’ knowledge or help them apply what they have learned.</i></li></ul><ul><li><i><a href="https://www.packback.co/" target="_blank">Packback</a> takes care of basic monitoring, like making sure the students are on topic and are asking open-ended questions that encourage discussion. It prompts students to supply answers that are backed up with sources and to write more in depth. And it uses an algorithm to give a ‘curiosity score’ to each post based on those and other measures. Because everyone can see all the scores, some instructors say students often try harder when writing subsequent posts.</i></li></ul><ul><li><i><a href="https://go.peerceptiv.com/" target="_blank">Peerceptiv</a> works by evaluating the reviewer, not the writing itself, says Chris Schunn, a professor of psychology, learning sciences and policy, and intelligent systems at the University of Pittsburgh and the principal investigator behind the program. It helps instructors by anonymizing and distributing student work, allowing each writing assignment to be reviewed by several classmates. Then it monitors and graphs student feedback, including feedback on the reviewers. If a student hands out high ratings to every classmate while others are writing more-nuanced evaluations, his rank as a reviewer will drop. If he gives feedback that other students say is helpful, his score rises.</i></li></ul>Law professors can and should use these technologies toward effective learning strategies. When using AI in teaching, it would be wonderful if law professors pointed out the similarities to using AI in law. These would provide concrete examples of the pitfalls associated with relying on proprietary algorithms to outsource low-level lawyer functions and provide valuable insight to students as they continue to rely heavily on AI for all aspects of life.<br /><br />Ultimately, we should all start preparing for this inevitable future with the following caveat (just like in law): <i>Just as long as the instructor remains in charge of the classroom.</i>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-90793637084570256492018-08-13T09:40:00.000-07:002018-08-13T09:40:29.250-07:00Transitioning From Peer to Manager<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AllFfXXCj0I/W3G0JShqBxI/AAAAAAAAEg4/DKIUiO_gKvMoYFBKJ-yT6NjwgWfF-sCmgCLcBGAs/s1600/peer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AllFfXXCj0I/W3G0JShqBxI/AAAAAAAAEg4/DKIUiO_gKvMoYFBKJ-yT6NjwgWfF-sCmgCLcBGAs/s1600/peer.jpg" /></a></div>After transitioning to interim law library director in March 2018, I attended AALL's Leadership Academy as a Leadership Fellow, was accepted to the New Directors' pre-AALL Annual Meeting Workshop, and was selected as a university representative and Leadership Fellow in the Texas Academic Leadership Academy.<div><br /></div><div>2018 has officially been the year of leadership training.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>During each of these wonderful leadership-training events, the speakers all touched on transitioning from peer to manager -- mostly noting that it was often a difficult transition. They were certainly right about that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Continuing research into the tough transition from peer to manager led me to a 2013 Forbes article titled <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2013/09/30/8-tips-to-transition-from-co-worker-to-manager/#7f47706514b5" target="_blank">8 Tips to Transition from Co-Worker to Manager</a>. This article is particularly helpful for the practical tips it provides.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><div>As noted,<i>&nbsp;making the move from co-worker to department manager can be a tricky transition because, as the new manager, you are responsible for the productivity and results of your department. Oftentimes, former co-workers, either because of jealousy or out of habit, won’t want to treat you as the boss; they may want to continue treating you as one of the group.</i></div></div><div><br /></div><div><i><b>Tip 1:</b>&nbsp;Realize that your previous personal relationships with co-workers will need to be moved to a different level because you’re no longer a peer – you are now the person who assigns work, analyzes productivity and provides performance appraisals.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><b>Tip 2:</b>&nbsp;See your HR representative to find out what training and support is available as you take on your new leadership role.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><b>Tip 3:</b>&nbsp;Sit down one-on-one with each person in the department to discuss their feelings about your transition to manager. Talk about the expectations you have of each other and get potential issues out on the table so you can address them.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><b>Tip 4:</b>&nbsp;Remain professional at all times. And, treat each and every employee fairly and with respect.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><b>Tip 5:</b>&nbsp;Eliminate any water-cooler or break-room gossip and venting sessions with employees.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><b>Tip 6:</b>&nbsp;Don’t allow previous work and/or friendships with your former peers to influence your new managerial responsibilities.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><b>Tip 7:</b>&nbsp;Ensure that everyone on the team understands your new role as their manager and the responsibilities that are expected of you as well as the role each of them plays in the success (or failure) of the department.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><b>Tip 8:&nbsp;</b>Work out a game plan for how you and your team can best work together to achieve the goals and objectives of the department. (Be sure to clearly and concisely communicate those goals and objectives).</i></div><div><br /></div><div>While I continue to <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/06/using-servant-leadership-style-in-law.html" target="_blank">learn and employ various leadership theories</a>; after 6 months in my new role, I'd say these tips for an early and effective transition are right on.&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-68119974726427968802018-06-28T08:43:00.000-07:002018-06-28T09:06:10.432-07:00Ravel View for Lexis Advance Visually Showcases Case Data for Faster Searching<a href="https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2018/02/exclusive-first-look-ravel-laws-integration-lexis-advance.html" target="_blank">Context</a>: <i>Daniel Lewis was just in his second year at Stanford Law School when he had an idea for a different way to do legal research. His idea was to display search results visually, along a cluster map that shows the relationships among cases and their relative importance to each other. Shortly after he graduated in 2012, he and classmate Nicholas Reed had launched the legal research platform derived from his idea, Ravel Law. Last June, five years after its founding, Ravel was acquired by legal research giant LexisNexis.</i><br /><br /><b>Ravel View for Lexis Advance is here!</b><br /><br />In the latest iteration of Lexis's push to sift through massive amounts of data and provide meaningful results, Ravel View provides additional metrics and a visual, data-driven view for legal research results.<br /><br />The programmers' constant tweaking of Lexis Advance to aid users is wonderful, but Ravel View showcases a truly innovative step in legal research visualization that meets users where they are likely to look.<br /><br />The traditional list view of results will look familiar&nbsp;with a notable change -- the bar at the bottom of each case listed.&nbsp;<i>It uses the colors of Shepard’s signal indicators to give the user a quick visual overview of how the case has been treated in subsequent citations.</i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VgSJy-9Pdd0/WzPaemxBuyI/AAAAAAAAETE/MbkY4GAK6J0ijdNY_i7liz4LhuA-TcXTQCLcBGAs/s1600/List%2Bview.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="856" data-original-width="1600" height="340" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VgSJy-9Pdd0/WzPaemxBuyI/AAAAAAAAETE/MbkY4GAK6J0ijdNY_i7liz4LhuA-TcXTQCLcBGAs/s640/List%2Bview.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />Clicking view mode is where the magic happens. <i>By clicking View Mode in the upper right corner of the screen, the user can switch over to the search visualization mode based on the Ravel integration. It uses [a] cluster map of larger and smaller bubbles showing connections among cases and relative importance of cases, all arranged along a timeline.</i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tqslMj8jQo4/WzPc3wwDU2I/AAAAAAAAETc/oLkzpLBX2b0vnpAs694U9ZwcEB_PNZTqACLcBGAs/s1600/RavelView1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tqslMj8jQo4/WzPc3wwDU2I/AAAAAAAAETc/oLkzpLBX2b0vnpAs694U9ZwcEB_PNZTqACLcBGAs/s640/RavelView1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />The above view is sorted by court. The circles are sized by how often the case is cited. Users get the benefit of Shepard's integration to easily view the citation relationship between cases by showing which cases judges find most important. With a quick hover, users see the citing language used in the case.<br /><br />The beauty of this type of case visualization is the ability to quickly and easily identify key cases that may not have been uncovered in traditional list view, such as spotting key Supreme Court decisions. And it shows, in context, why the cases are important.<br /><br />From the example above, one of the four Supreme Court decisions shown in the visual was buried deep in the traditional list view of results sorted by relevance. Ravel View makes it easy to identify this decision visually and shows how often this case has been cited by lower courts. The user can clearly see that this is a case to review.<br /><br />Drawing analogies to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215500461_The_Google_generation_The_information_behaviour_of_the_researcher_of_the_future" target="_blank">studies on the Google Generation's research habits</a> showing that they are likely to scan results quickly and not go beyond the first page of results (and probably not past the top 3 results), this product may, in fact, save us all.<br /><br />In additional to this iterative step in legal research data visualization, we get another added benefit of the Ravel/LexisNexis deal. <i>Before its acquisition by LexisNexis, Ravel had embarked on a project with Harvard Law School to digitize all U.S. case law. [B]oth Harvard and LexisNexis committed to completing that project, carried out under the auspices of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab. Those cases have now been added to the Lexis Advance database. The total collection from Harvard was 5-7 million documents, and a “few hundred thousand” of them were cases not previously included in Lexis, Pfeifer said. That brought the number of case documents in Lexis Advance from 13.5 million to nearly 14 million. In addition, later this year, Lexis Advance will be adding PDFs of all the cases from the Harvard collection. These include cases from before the American Revolution up to 2016.</i><br /><br />Lexis plans to continue the rollout of the Ravel integration in Lexis Advance with analytics on judges and courts later this summer.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-29897520843930914132018-06-20T10:48:00.000-07:002018-06-20T10:48:13.770-07:00Using the Servant-Leadership Style in Law LibrariesThe highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware.<br />Next comes one whom they love and praise.<br />Next comes one whom they fear.<br />Next comes one whom they despise and defy.<br /><br />When you are lacking in faith,<br />Others will be unfaithful to you.<br /><br />The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words.<br />When his task is accomplished and things have been completed, All the people say, ‘We ourselves have achieved it!’ -- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership" target="_blank">Lao-Tzu</a><br /><br />Over the past 10 years working in law libraries, I've gone from Student Circulation Assistant to Student Reference Assistant to a general Reference Librarian to a more specialized Faculty Services &amp; Scholarly Communications Librarian to Associate Director to Interim Director. For the first 8 years or so, I spent my time honing the front-line skills necessary for exemplary library work. As I've entered middle and now upper management, there's an entirely new set of skills necessary to effectively perform these roles.<br /><br />Needless to say, I've been soaking up leadership material through conferences, books, and articles. Thanks to the passive alerts to The Chronicle of Higher Education set up in my email account, I recently came across the book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Using-Servant-Leadership-Functions-Education/dp/0813587344" target="_blank">Using Servant Leadership: How to Reframe the Core Functions of Higher Education</a>.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />Law schools tend to have rigid hierarchies. After working the front lines in law libraries, it's clear that rigid hierarchies are not appealing for the type of constant collaboration needed in today's fast-changing library environment. We must build teams with varying expertise that can be supported and harnessed to help meet <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/04/aligning-law-library-strategic-plan.html" target="_blank">the overall mission of the law library</a>&nbsp;and law school.<br /><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ckjl--IjCzQ/WyqSkX1PfXI/AAAAAAAAERc/eu7DWP0V7jwnQAV5cK7Sha4baXy9iTmIACLcBGAs/s1600/servent_leadership_checklist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="1056" height="244" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ckjl--IjCzQ/WyqSkX1PfXI/AAAAAAAAERc/eu7DWP0V7jwnQAV5cK7Sha4baXy9iTmIACLcBGAs/s320/servent_leadership_checklist.jpg" width="320" /></a>To effectively support this team of experts, law library leaders should consider using a servant leadership style.&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership" target="_blank">Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy</a>. Traditional leadership generally involves the exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid.” By comparison, the servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Servant leadership turns the power pyramid upside down; instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people. When leaders shift their mindset and serve first, they unlock purpose and ingenuity in those around them, resulting in higher performance and engaged, fulfilled employees.</i><br /><br />&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/When-Power-Plays-Fail-You-Can/243461" target="_blank">In CHE</a>, the author of the book, Angelo J. Letizia, <i>suggests, for example, that administrators, ideally, can use their positions not to accumulate power but to exemplify wise and selfless leadership.&nbsp;</i><br /><br /><i>The concept of "servant leadership" has grown more familiar in various walks of life in the nearly five decades since Robert K. Greenleaf, a management researcher, introduced the idea in an essay. The term encompasses such qualities in leaders — whether they hold managerial titles or not — as altruism, humility, and an ability to inspire others to press on toward goals in situations "fraught with setbacks, self-doubt, and self-questioning." Such leaders are high-level conceptual thinkers who counter "rabid individualism" by advancing an ethos of service to others.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>In a higher-education context, the concept can relate to improving institutional life along various axes. These include exercising restrained but effective control, increasing diversity and tolerance, and helping students to become leaders who advance causes of social justice.&nbsp;</i><i><b>Letizia says servant leadership may also entail finding ways "to measure growth on these axes without falling into a pathology of measurement." That means not only being able to quantify accomplishments in such terms as [traditional law library statistics], but also to offer a "narrative of accountability" that demonstrates accomplishment "in the chaos and volatility in which organizations must operate."</b></i><br /><br />Law libraries are certainly operating under the chaos and volatility inherent in 21st Century library work. We must cohesively keep the systems running that support the legal education curriculum while instructing on a coherent process that utilizes these systems and prepares for practice. We have all worked out our "narrative of accountability that demonstrates accomplishment" in these challenging budget and staffing times. Now is the time to support our (generally) fewer staff people more than ever and see where we can go.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-21494186723443329842018-06-18T08:37:00.001-07:002018-06-18T08:37:54.766-07:00A Legal Framework for the "Information Apocalypse"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j8VnAA1T6_k/WyfResjO5UI/AAAAAAAAEQI/JAphDKaLu2UoBtRzybfBZtDxw0_JT8RxQCLcBGAs/s1600/shutterstock_190449881-e1445011987249.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="133" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j8VnAA1T6_k/WyfResjO5UI/AAAAAAAAEQI/JAphDKaLu2UoBtRzybfBZtDxw0_JT8RxQCLcBGAs/s200/shutterstock_190449881-e1445011987249.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/17/law.technology/index.html" target="_blank">In 2009, a CNN article noted</a> that the <b>law is "at least five years behind</b> technology as it is developing."<br /><br />In late 2016,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/the-terrifying-future-of-fake-news?utm_term=.xyy5gOKALg&amp;amp%3Butm_campaign=Technology%2BReview&amp;amp%3Butm_source=twitter.com&amp;amp%3Butm_medium=social#.sxQgxYjGLx" target="_blank">Aviv Ovadya was one of the first people to see</a> that there was something fundamentally wrong with the internet. <i>A few weeks before the 2016 election, he presented his concerns to technologists in San Francisco’s Bay Area and warned of an impending crisis of misinformation in a presentation he titled “Infocalypse.”</i><br /><br /><i>Ovadya saw early what many — including lawmakers, journalists, and Big Tech CEOs — wouldn’t grasp until months later: Our platformed and algorithmically optimized world is vulnerable — to propaganda, to misinformation, to dark targeted advertising from foreign governments — so much so that it threatens to undermine a cornerstone of human discourse: <b>the credibility of fact.</b></i><br /><br />Ovadya — now the chief technologist for the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Media Responsibility and a Knight News innovation fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia — says the shock and ongoing anxiety over Russian Facebook ads and Twitter bots pales in comparison to the greater threat: <i><b>Technologies that can be used to enhance and distort what is real are evolving faster than our ability to understand and control or mitigate it.</b></i><br /><br />With law arguably lagging exponentially behind technology, what's the solution?<br /><br /><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3191231" target="_blank">Omri Ben-Shahar's article, <i>Data Pollution</i></a>, is a good place to begin.<br /><br />From the abstract:<br /><i>Digital information is the fuel of the new economy. But like the old economy's carbon fuel, it also pollutes. Harmful "data emissions" are leaked into the digital ecosystem, disrupting social institutions and public interests. This article develops a novel framework- data pollution-to rethink the harms the data economy creates and the way they have to be regulated. It argues that social intervention should focus on the external harms from collection and misuse of personal data. The article challenges the hegemony of the prevailing view-that the harm from digital data enterprise is to the privacy of the people whose information is used. It claims that a central problem has been largely ignored: how the information individuals give affects others, and how it undermines and degrade public goods and interests. The data pollution metaphor offers a novel perspective why existing regulatory tools-torts, contracts, and disclosure law-are ineffective, mirroring their historical futility in curbing the external social harms from environmental pollution. The data pollution framework also opens up a rich roadmap for new regulatory devices-an environmental law for data protection-that focus on controlling these external effects. The article examines whether the general tools society has long used to control industrial pollution-production restrictions, carbon tax, and emissions liability-could be adapted to govern data pollution.</i><br /><br />At this point, data regulation is still in its infancy -- in fact, it's currently almost nonexistent (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation" target="_blank">at least in the U.S</a>.). Ben-Shahar's article starts the discussion about an online environmental law as a regulatory scheme using personal data as its case study.<br /><br />We must continue to focus on the development of these regulatory schemes, for personal data and other, given that we are already so far behind. In addition to a discussion of the regulatory schemes, legal educators must include data ethics and discussions of algorithmic issues into the law school curriculum so that our future lawyers are thinking about these issues.<br /><br />While the law definitely has a role to play in data protection, as stated in the 2009 CNN article,&nbsp;<i>the law is only good at policing the most extreme invasions and the most outrageous cases. It can't take the place of good manners, social norms and etiquette -- the kind of thing that has always governed negotiations about face-to-face behavior. We should never expect that the judges are going to save us from our own worst impulses.</i>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-1561608697907369042018-05-23T08:34:00.000-07:002018-05-23T08:34:47.883-07:00Creatively Harvesting Bluebook Data<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IgGOreqKdCM/WwWJUgATlRI/AAAAAAAADzM/cmtDOsqm9t8JkTa5G13ivorQ1J87YbJzgCLcBGAs/s1600/Scary%2BBluebook.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="662" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IgGOreqKdCM/WwWJUgATlRI/AAAAAAAADzM/cmtDOsqm9t8JkTa5G13ivorQ1J87YbJzgCLcBGAs/s200/Scary%2BBluebook.png" width="185" /></a>As late as 2016, I was ready to <a href="https://www.yalelawjournal.org/review/the-bluebook-blues" target="_blank">join Justice Posner</a> and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2016/10/law-journal-abandons-bluebook.html" target="_blank">give up on <i>The Bluebook</i></a>. After research into the <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/01/tech-tuesday-duty-of-tech-in.html" target="_blank">use of algorithms in the era of big data</a>, however, my thinking has changed.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Is-Your-Position-on/242586" target="_blank">The Chronicle of Higher Education</a> recently ran an article articulating the concerns with following a particular citation style. <i>The problem with the rules-heavy approach to teaching [citation] isn’t just the rigidity with which students are taught those rules or follow them. It’s that too often students are taught rules without any context or justification. That’s just "the way things are."&nbsp;Students are left following rules just because a [law review editor] told them to, none the wiser about their function or history. It’s a recipe for seeing writing as foreign or external — something a student is supposed to do but not necessarily understand. Just follow the rules, kid, and there won’t be any trouble.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Instead of taking this approach to citation, the author leads a discussion&nbsp;<i>not about citation styles, but about citation itself. Why do we cite? What purpose does it serve? Why should we have conventions for citation? Eventually, of course, we end up talking about style guides, and those students who just want to know whether to put the period before or after the closing parenthesis will get their answer. But they also learn something about why there are <a href="https://ctl.yale.edu/writing/using-sources/why-are-there-different-citation-styles" target="_blank">so many different style guides</a>. (It has to do with different disciplinary priorities: The sentence is important to the humanities; the year is important to the sciences.) Students learn about the value of giving credit to people for their ideas, and about the collaborative nature of all scholarly work. What begins as a technicality can end up going pretty deep into the very nature of the writer’s task.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Even given this deeper thinking about citation, it was hard to completely buy into the rigidity of <i>The Bluebook</i> (particularly given Posner's justifications for a streamlined legal citation style).<br /><br />That is until algorithms and big data became powerful players in quickly harvesting content.<br /><br />The folks at <a href="https://casetext.com/" target="_blank">Casetext</a> are leading the way here, as Pablo Arredondo, Casetext's Co-founder and Chief Legal Research Officer, explains in his recent article <i><a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/leinforv1&amp;div=6&amp;g_sent=1&amp;casa_token=&amp;collection=journals" target="_blank">Harvesting and Utilizing Explanatory Parentheticals</a>, </i>69 S.C. L. Rev. 659 (2018).<br /><br />From the intro:<br /><i>Explanatory parentheticals -- the concise summaries neatly packages alongside case citations -- are ubiquitous, easily harvested, and grossly underutilized. This Paper describes what is believed to be the first instance of harvesting explanatory parentheticals and utilizing them on a mass scale. Specifically, this Paper describes how hundreds of thousands of parentheticals were identified, mined from case law, and then integrated into Casetext, a free legal research platform. The value that parentheticals add to research is explored, including enhancing the value of citatory.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />The article provides, <i>[i]n sum, the common law is teeming with concise case law summaries, and leveraging </i>The Bluebook<i>-decreed consistency of the explanatory parenthetical format enables an immense set of these summaries to be harvested algorithmically.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i>Thank you to Casetext for creatively leveraging this data and providing a "real" justification for following rigid citation rules. When teaching citation, this is a wonderful conversation starter on many fronts.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-32911900570835273132018-04-17T10:52:00.000-07:002018-04-17T15:32:58.777-07:00Aligning the Law Library Strategic Plan with "Program of Legal Education"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xjBCZjpXAFQ/WtY0IbIdgXI/AAAAAAAADrc/BUE4GVYC24ot213UVGuqc1ES5Ldf1Mj2QCLcBGAs/s1600/what_is_strategic_planning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="134" data-original-width="493" height="86" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xjBCZjpXAFQ/WtY0IbIdgXI/AAAAAAAADrc/BUE4GVYC24ot213UVGuqc1ES5Ldf1Mj2QCLcBGAs/s320/what_is_strategic_planning.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/misc/legal_education/Standards/2017-2018ABAStandardsforApprovalofLawSchools/2017_2018_standards_chapter6.authcheckdam.pdf" target="_blank">In addition to ABA Standard Chapter 6 concerns</a>, as the <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/11/the-aba-self-study-law-library.html" target="_blank">ABA continues to focus on a law school's "program of legal education,"</a> it is wise for law libraries to take note and align their strategic plans directly with the "program of legal education."<br /><br />Accordingly, Standard 601 states:<br />Standard 601. GENERAL PROVISIONS<br />(a) A law school shall maintain a law library that:<br />(1) provides support through expertise, resources, and services adequate to enable the law<br />school to carry out its <b>program of legal education</b>, accomplish its mission, and support<br />scholarship and research;<br />(2) develops and maintains a direct, informed, and responsive relationship with the faculty,<br />students, and administration of the law school;<br />(3) working with the dean and faculty, engages in a regular planning and assessment process, including written assessment of the effectiveness of the library in achieving its mission<br />and realizing its established goals; and<br />(4) remains informed on and implements, as appropriate, technological and other<br />developments affecting the library’s support for the law school’s <b>program of legal</b><br /><b>education</b>.<br /><br />Fortunately, we know what "program of legal education" refers to through guidance from the <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/governancedocuments/2017_2018_site_report_template_spring_2018.authcheckdam.pdf" target="_blank">ABA Site Evaluation Report Template</a>&nbsp;(Questions 11-38). <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/11/the-aba-self-study-law-library.html" target="_blank">When reviewing the relevant "program of legal education" questions, the Law Library often takes an active role in the following</a>:<br /><ul><li><b>Question 16 </b>dealing with student learning outcomes, particularly as the outcomes pertain to legal research proficiency.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Question 17</b> on preparing students, upon graduation, for admission to the bar and for effective, ethical, and responsible participation as members of the legal profession. After all associate, on average, spend 35% of their time doing legal research.</li><li><b>Question 20</b> discussing the first year writing experience because legal research is a part of legal writing.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Question 21</b> regarding the upper level writing requirement -- see legal research as a part of legal writing.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Questions 23 &amp; 24</b> dealing with experiential learning and simulation courses. Law libraries have led the way with hands-on experience in the classroom.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Question 26 </b>dealing with classroom instruction component of domestic field placements. Most of us provide legal research instruction here, too.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Question 29</b> dealing with "directed research" because many law librarians have individual research consultations with independent research study students or law review students.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Question 30</b> pertaining to distance education courses. Law libraries often teach online courses or support the course management system used by the school.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Question 35</b> covering academic support. Nearly every law library has substantial supplements and other study aid resources.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Question 37</b> dealing with formative and summative assessments. This is another area where law libraries have led the way in our for-credit courses.&nbsp;</li></ul><div>When doing strategic planning for the law library, these matters should be addressed so that law library services and programming align directly with the law school's program of legal education.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>For some, this may be an entirely new way of thinking about how the law library fits into the overall scheme. But it will allow for easier <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/03/proposed-change-to-aba-standard-601.html" target="_blank">written assessment of the law library</a> to articulate ongoing value to the law school.&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-19659921843367477202018-03-22T13:07:00.000-07:002018-03-22T13:07:41.843-07:00Proposed Change to ABA Standard 601: Written Assessment of Law Library Effectiveness <br /><div class="page" title="Page 1"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N4TgbXLLw9M/WrQMZk54PSI/AAAAAAAADkY/Q-T8-GGZ6qYPhZRB25ZmFNAZYDI0LuStACLcBGAs/s1600/watered_word.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="303" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N4TgbXLLw9M/WrQMZk54PSI/AAAAAAAADkY/Q-T8-GGZ6qYPhZRB25ZmFNAZYDI0LuStACLcBGAs/s200/watered_word.jpg" width="166" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/council_reports_and_resolutions/20171117_notice_and_comment.authcheckdam.pdf" target="_blank">The recent proposed change to ABA Standard 601(a)(3)</a>, calls for the removal of a written assessment of the effectiveness of the library in achieving its mission and realizing its established goals.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><b>Standard 601. Library and Information Resources, General Provisions</b><br /><br />Explanation of Changes:<br /><br />The current version of Standard 601(3)(a) was developed during the Comprehensive Review as a method of involving a law library in the process of strategic planning required of a law school. It was envisioned that the planning and assessment taking place for a law school (under what was then Standard 203) would incorporate the work done by the library under this new Standard. To ensure that incorporation, it was decided that a written assessment should be completed by the library. However, when the requirement for strategic planning for a law school was removed during a later phase of the Comprehensive Review, no change was made to the new Standard 601. As a result, the library community has been left confused as to what is required to comply with 601(a)(3). For example: Does a written assessment require an annual report? Must a survey of user satisfaction be conducted to develop an assessment? How often must the written report be prepared?<br /><br />It is appropriate for a law library to engage in the process of planning and assessment. This process helps the staff to achieve the goals set out in the rest of Standard 601. However, the requirement that the assessment be written is excessive, not required of any other unit of the law school, and has led to confusion for both library directors and the Accreditation Committee. This can be resolved simply by removing the requirement that the assessment be “written.” By making this change, a law library and a law school can determine how best to develop a method of assessment that meets the needs of the institution.<br /><b><br /></b><b>Redlined Draft:</b><br /><br />Standard 601. GENERAL PROVISIONS<br />(a) A law school shall maintain a law library that:<br />(1) provides support through expertise, resources, and services adequate to enable the law school to carry out its program of legal education, accomplish its mission, and support scholarship and research;<br />(2) develops and maintains a direct, informed, and responsive relationship with the faculty, students, and administration of the law school;<br />(3) working with the dean and faculty, engages in a regular planning and assessment process, including <span style="background-color: yellow;"><strike>written</strike> assessment</span> of the effectiveness of the library in achieving its mission and realizing its established goals; and<br />(4) remains informed on and implements, as appropriate, technological and other developments affecting the library’s support for the law school’s program of legal education.<br /><br />(b) A law school shall provide on a consistent basis sufficient financial resources to the law library to enable it to fulfill its responsibilities of support to the law school and realize its established goals.<br /><br />Both the Society of Academic Law Library Directors (SALLD) and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) have <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/notice_and_comment.html" target="_blank">provided comments</a> advocating that written assessment not be removed from Standard 601.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/council_reports_and_resolutions/comments/20180305_comment_s601_society_academic_law_library_directors.authcheckdam.pdf" target="_blank">From SALLD's comments</a>:</b><br />SALLD argues that the requirement for a written assessment be retained, regardless of the law school strategic planning process. The omission of questions relating to library collections, personnel and services in the Annual Questionnaire makes a regular and written assessment of library operations and functions crucial to establishing whether our libraries comply with the Standards, especially in the years between site visits by the ABA. These assessments have the ability to show whether and how our libraries are complying with the Standards and meeting the needs of our faculty and students. SALLD posits that “written” assessments can take any form that works for these purposes, whether through regular surveys, focus groups, annual reports or any other method that is appropriate to each law school library. <i>Without the requirement of a written assessment, changes in personnel, both in the law libraries and in their law schools, budget and funding changes and trends, law school and library demographic changes may be lost, hidden or simply not available.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8844319067330379742#editor/target=post;postID=1965992184336747720;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=link" target="_blank">From AALL's comments</a>:</b><br />While a law library and law school should be able to determine what method of assessment meets the needs of the institution, it is important that all final assessments and outcomes be documented and preserved in writing for the following reasons:<br />• A written assessment best captures the state of the library at any given period of time, including contributions to the curriculum, instruction, and scholarly services. A regular process that includes written assessment creates benchmarks, a standard or point of reference to measure success and failure over time. Such written assessments are invaluable tools for effective, knowledgeable, and responsive change.<br />• An unwritten assessment can become inaccurate, muddled, or irretrievable. Oral communications are fraught with the tendency to be easily forgotten, misinterpreted or misconstrued.<br />• A written assessment of the law library is most effective in documenting the not readily discernible but important work that the library performs to maintain appropriate cost-effective resources and services in the rapidly evolving environments of law, legal education, and information management. <i>A written assessment also serves to ensure that the law school is informed about the value of the library to the program of legal education.</i><br />• Finally, a written assessment facilitates transparency and can be shared easily with all stakeholders, including faculty, students, alumni, the university community, accrediting bodies, and other interested parties.<br /><br />With the continued watering down of the <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/03/law-libraries-under-cardiac-arrest.html" target="_blank">ABA's law library standards</a>, it's wonderful to see these two groups advocating to maintain the standards. Instead of removing the need for written assessment, it seems more important to clarify the nature of the written assessment. For example, the written assessment could mean explaining, in detail, <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/11/the-aba-self-study-law-library.html" target="_blank">how the law library supports the law school's program of legal education</a>.<br /><br />Providing written assessment of this kind would ensure that changes are not lost, hidden or simply not available. And it would also ensure that the law school is directly informed about the value of the library to the program of legal education.<br /> </div></div></div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-47274528672092605722018-02-15T14:11:00.002-08:002018-02-16T07:19:28.335-08:00Empirical Study Shows Algorithmic Bias in Library Discovery Layers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mM-D0vlqJhs/WoYEwCX_Y2I/AAAAAAAADfE/gAXXEot4vL4lkHm9iHazFQ0ZXUgCBBZ0wCLcBGAs/s1600/artficial-intelligence-bias.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="635" height="111" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mM-D0vlqJhs/WoYEwCX_Y2I/AAAAAAAADfE/gAXXEot4vL4lkHm9iHazFQ0ZXUgCBBZ0wCLcBGAs/s200/artficial-intelligence-bias.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Discussions surrounding algorithmic bias are <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2015/12/bias-in-machine-reading-artificial.html" target="_blank">fairly common</a>. We've even seen discussion of algorithmic bias in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2015/05/library-discovery-tools-bias.html" target="_blank">library discovery tools.</a>&nbsp;Most of this discussion, though, has been theoretical. In what is purportedly the first empirical study to <a href="https://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/173" target="_blank">analyze algorithmic bias in library discovery systems, Matthew Reidsma</a>&nbsp;put ProQuest's Topic Explorer to the test to review potential biases affecting results.<br /><br /><i>More and more academic libraries have invested in discovery layers, the centralized “Google-like” search tool that returns results from different services and providers by searching a centralized index. The move to discovery has been driven by the ascendence of Google as well as libraries' increasing focus on user experience. Unlike the vendor-specific search tools or federated searches of the previous decade, discovery presents a simplified picture of the library research process. It has the familiar single search box, and the results are not broken out by provider or format but are all shown together in a list, aping the Google model for search results.</i><br /><br />The potential for bias is particularly troublesome for library discovery layers because libraries are seen as highly reputable institutions that users should inherently trust.<br /><br />As Reidsma notes, <i>that our perception of search tools’ trustworthiness should be so uncritical has been a boon to the industry. In librarianship over the past few decades, the profession has had to grapple with the perception that computers are better at finding relevant information then people. On the technical services side of the profession, we have responded to this perception by pushing for more integration with our various search tools. Over the past decade discovery tools, which search a unified index of providers from a single certain point, have changed the way that many library users do research. As our discovery tools have become more complex, much of the discussion and critique has centered on the simplification of the search process, the effectiveness of user interface elements, and the integration with other library systems and services. <b>[He]&nbsp;ha[s] found no substantive evaluation of the search algorithms of commercial library discovery platforms in the literature.&nbsp;</b>The task of determining how successful our library discovery tools are at presenting good results is thus stymied by user perceptions of what the tools are capable of, the opacity of the business model of our search engine providers, and the fact that underlying everything was a series of instructions written by people with a particular point of view.</i><br /><br />Reidsma put a discovery layer to the test through a series of searches designed to ferret out bias. Ultimately, Reidsma found that the discovery layer's algorithm showed bias in the following areas:<br /><ul><li>Women</li><li>The LGBT Community</li><li>Islam</li><li>Race</li><li>Mental Illness</li></ul>The biased results are in areas commonly known for their <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/computers-are-showing-their-biases-and-tech-firms-are-concerned-1440102894" target="_blank">stereotypical social biases</a>. What we find, time and again, is that the algorithms are only as good as the biases present in the programmers who code them.<br /><br />Why is this an issue in the library world? <i>Since the goal of the Topic Explorer is to identify the underlying topic behind a user's search, incorrect or biases results can have a great impact on a user's perception of a topic. By showing results that exploit stereotypes or bias, the Topic Explorer is saying to the user, “this is what you are looking for.” The purpose of [Riedsma's] examination was to bring these anomalies to light and start a discussion within the library community about how to improve our search tools for everyone.</i>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-17169831140619977142018-02-01T13:58:00.000-08:002018-02-01T13:58:21.048-08:00The Information Business; The People BusinessLaw libraries are in the information business. To act as superior guides to this information, we must also be in the people business. We must be concerned with the people who seek our information. And we must be concerned with the people who guide those seekers to the information (i.e., our staff).<br /><br />Contrary to popular belief, it's not easy to be a staff person in the rigid hierarchy of an academic law library. Particularly at a time when law libraries are facing increased budget pressures that require staff to do much more with much less. This is especially challenging with longtime staff who have seen their jobs change dramatically since they were hired. Many of these folks were not formally trained in librarianship, and they may be resistant to the flexibility needed in today's law library. <br /><br />Given these challenges, how do we motivate our staff to be the very best guides to our information?<br /><br />To that end, there was an enlightening program at the AALL Annual Conference in 2013 that discussed staff motivation. Luckily, Bonnie Shucha attended this program and <a href="http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/llaw/publications/briefs/newsfall13.pdf" target="_blank">wrote a review for the Law Librarians Association of Wisconsin</a>. That review is reproduced, in part, below.<br /><br />Presenters Johnson and Parr began by explaining the three laws of motivation:<br /><br /><ul><li>Law #1: Financial incentives don't work</li><li>Law #2: People will do what they want to do</li><li>Law #3: The boss is usually the problem</li></ul><b>Law #1: Financial incentives don't work:</b><br /><br />To underscore this fact, the presenters highlighted a survey where managers were asked how they thought employees would rank certain motivating factors. This was compared with how employees actually ranked them.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X03SWIGtMjQ/WnN_51CPQtI/AAAAAAAADc0/aOC5aJ_4wWIOcaAQ6K2v4c0F1zgDdvlUgCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-02-01%2Bat%2B3.00.01%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="636" height="363" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X03SWIGtMjQ/WnN_51CPQtI/AAAAAAAADc0/aOC5aJ_4wWIOcaAQ6K2v4c0F1zgDdvlUgCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-02-01%2Bat%2B3.00.01%2BPM.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Law #2: People Will Do What They Want to Do</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">There is a difference between doing what you have to do and doing what you want to do. People would rather do what they want to do than what they have to do. And they will do a better job when they are doing work that they enjoy. No big revelations there.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Effective managers understand this concept and use it to help their staff stay motivated which, in turn, increases morale and productivity. So, managers, do you know what type of work that your staff members enjoy? What drives then to come to work every day?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Conversely, are their aspects of their job that they would change if they could? Are there new directions that they would like to go? Projects that they would like to take on? Skills that they want to develop?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">How do you find out all of this, you may ask? That’s easy – just ask them! And listen to what they say.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Law #3: The Boss is Usually the Problem</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">When employees are unhappy and unmotivated, it’s usually the boss that is the problem.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">It’s a manager’s job to create and maintain a healthy work environment. Unfortunately, there are numerous roadblocks that can get in the way: a lack of trust, lack of respect, hostility between co-workers, micromanagement, fear of harsh consequences for failure, etc. Managers that fail to remove roadblocks for their staff, or worse yet create them, prevent employees from doing their best work.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Effective managers address the problems that create roadblocks for their employees and resolve them when they can. Communicate this to your staff and encourage them to come to you when they encounter a problem. Then get out of the way and watch them thrive.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Advice for Managers</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Presenters Johnson and Parr wrapped up with advice on how managers can help staff library members motivate themselves.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><ul><li>Assign challenging work. Avoid assigning busy work.</li><li>Concentrate on results. Tell staff what needs to be done and let then figure out how to get there.</li><li>Trust staff to deliver results.</li><li>Know what motivates staff. Ask them.</li><li>Consider individual strengths for growth. Give people a chance to do what they love.</li><li>Define expectations and set clear parameters for failure and success.</li><li>Hold people accountable. Failure to hold under performers accountable, will demotivate everyone else.</li><li>Be appreciative and show staff that the work they do is meaningful. Be specific – for example, say “Thank you for doing X. It is exactly what I need to do Y.”</li><li>Give feedback throughout the year.</li><li>Applaud and encourage innovation.&nbsp;</li><li>Treat staff as adults. Don't try to protect them from bad news to prevent them from getting upset.</li></ul><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">These types of motivational principles can go far to help ensure that law library staff are motivated to act as superior guides to the information that our patrons seek.&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-79487477179698119242018-01-24T13:39:00.003-08:002018-01-24T14:02:30.016-08:00Law Librarian Status as Gender Equity Issue<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E4mwG4vHBTM/WmeFynBZemI/AAAAAAAADaw/mouQq1lK3XAG99OhFuLRmB59NXavSDgewCLcBGAs/s1600/2000px-Igualtat_de_sexes.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1141" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E4mwG4vHBTM/WmeFynBZemI/AAAAAAAADaw/mouQq1lK3XAG99OhFuLRmB59NXavSDgewCLcBGAs/s200/2000px-Igualtat_de_sexes.svg.png" width="142" /></a></div>There's been much written about gender bias in legal writing and how legal writing instructors inhabit what is referred to as the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink-collar_worker" target="_blank">pink ghetto</a>" of the legal academy (see, e.g.,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42898293?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=968690" target="_blank">here</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1339&amp;context=faculty" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2673588" target="_blank">here</a>). The pink ghetto of the legal academy refers to the lower status, lower paid positions that women often occupy. What's interesting is that law librarians are often left out of this discussion (though,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42893627?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">not always</a>).<br /><br />Historically, law librarianship has been a field dominated by women.<i> <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1882&amp;context=faculty_scholarship" target="_blank">In the 1999-2000 academic</a> year, for example, 52 percent of law school library directors were women (up from 44 percent in 1994-95). ' In 1999, 67 percent of all academic law librarians were women. If directors were subtracted from that figure, the female percentage of nondirector librarians would be substantially higher than 67 percent.&nbsp;</i><br /><br /><i>Historical statistics on law library directors are instructive in another way. In 1950, 55 percent of the directors were women, but at that time only 66 percent of the directors had law degrees; in 1970, when 91 percent of library directors had law degrees, women had only 35 percent of the directorships. As these jobs were upgraded, women were driven out of them. Only now is the female percentage of library directors approaching the level where it had been in 1950.</i><br /><i><br /></i>And even more instructive is now that more women are becoming law library directors, <a href="https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1108&amp;context=law_facpub" target="_blank">the status of directors is no longer what it used to be</a>. Coincidence? Not if we look to the historical notion of the "pink ghetto" as lower status and lower paid.<br /><br />Not only is this a problem for law library directors,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/12/law-librarian-status-academic-freedom.html" target="_blank">law librarians, in general, lack status</a> to engage meaningfully with the academy. We lack the status to partake in true faculty governance to lead our law schools forward. We lack status to engage in controversial scholarship that informs our profession.<br /><br />It's problematic for a variety of reasons, least of which is that we provide <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/11/the-aba-self-study-law-library.html" target="_blank">such substantial support for legal education</a>. And have been doing so since the beginning of the legal academy. If&nbsp;given the proper support and resources, law libraries become <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/04/law-libraries-supporting-aba-standards.html" target="_blank">the backbone of our institutions</a>.<br /><br />Also instructive is the pervasive reason for leaving law librarians out of the discussion: <i>". . . <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1033477" target="_blank">excluded law librarians</a>, even those who held tenure-line positions, because “the central focus of their careers was not teaching.”&nbsp;</i>Of course, <a href="https://law.unl.edu/documents/Schmid_Law_Library/Leiter-ModernLibraries.pdf" target="_blank">any law librarian today would say</a> that the central focus of many (if not most) of our careers is, in fact, on teaching.<br /><br />It's easy to ignore systemic bias if it is not recognized as such. Like the legal writing instructors who have brought this issue to the forefront, it's important for law librarians to communicate this issue clearly and often to ensure that others are aware.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-79940311424812936752018-01-23T07:38:00.001-08:002018-01-23T07:38:56.471-08:00The Importance of Using Reasonable Care When Relying on Algorithms in Law: A Case Study<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PiJl7Fg_97Q/WmdWyIKDQTI/AAAAAAAADZs/FYMRrmxiywI0uOZFH0Eh_UwD2TdxpzxbwCLcBGAs/s1600/nas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="615" height="171" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PiJl7Fg_97Q/WmdWyIKDQTI/AAAAAAAADZs/FYMRrmxiywI0uOZFH0Eh_UwD2TdxpzxbwCLcBGAs/s320/nas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Given the issues with the "Google Generation" and seeming ease of using algorithms in law, there are increasing challenges in using reasonable care to comply with the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3097250" target="_blank">newer Duty of Technology Competence</a>.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/01/tech-tuesday-duty-of-tech-in.html" target="_blank">As noted in a previous post</a>:<div><div><i>The Duty of Technology Competence requires lawyers to keep abreast of “changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” To date, 28 states have adopted the duty.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Using reasonable care to understand the benefits and risks associated with relevant technologies is increasingly difficult as society moves beyond the abundance of information that defined the Information Age to increasingly rely on algorithms that sort big data in the Algorithmic Society.</i></div></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>However, reasonable care is essential when using algorithms in law. Take the COMPAS risk-assessment tool, for example. <i><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/equivant-compas-algorithm/550646/?utm_source=newsletters&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=2018_01_18&amp;utm_campaign=the_algorithm&amp;utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&amp;utm_campaign=e8d645b518-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_18&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_997ed6f472-e8d645b518-156715389" target="_blank">Developed by a private company called Equivant</a> (formerly Northpointe), COMPAS—or the Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions—purports to predict a defendant’s risk of committing another crime. It works through a proprietary algorithm that considers some of the answers to a 137-item questionnaire. COMPAS is one of several such risk-assessment algorithms being used around the country to predict hot spots of violent crime, determine the types of supervision that inmates might need, or provide information that might be useful in sentencing.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>The inner workings of the algorithm are secretive, and a recent <a href="https://harvardlawreview.org/2017/03/state-v-loomis/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling</a> urged caution and skepticism in the algorithm's use.&nbsp;<i><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/equivant-compas-algorithm/550646/?utm_source=newsletters&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=2018_01_18&amp;utm_campaign=the_algorithm&amp;utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&amp;utm_campaign=e8d645b518-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_18&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_997ed6f472-e8d645b518-156715389" target="_blank">Caution is indeed warranted</a>, according to Julia Dressel and Hany Farid from Dartmouth College. <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/1/eaao5580" target="_blank">In a new study</a>, they have shown that COMPAS is no better at predicting an individual’s risk of recidivism than random volunteers recruited from the internet.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>A major issue is the lack of transparency for human users to understand how the algorithm generated its results -- results that could be biased. <i>In 2016, the technology reporter Julia Angwin and colleagues at ProPublica analyzed COMPAS assessments for more than 7,000 arrestees in Broward County, Florida, and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing" target="_blank">published an investigation</a> claiming that the algorithm was biased against African Americans. The problems, they said, lay in the algorithm’s mistakes. “Blacks are almost twice as likely as whites to be labeled a higher risk but not actually re-offend,” the team wrote. And COMPAS “makes the opposite mistake among whites: They are much more likely than blacks to be labeled lower-risk but go on to commit other crimes.”</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Lawyers and judges using algorithms in law should be cognizant and use reasonable care to assess an algorithm's results. They <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/11/2018-legal-research-odyssey.html" target="_blank">must understand the pitfalls with relying on algorithms</a> and try (although very difficult given the lack of transparency) to avoid those pitfalls. In fact, in many jurisdictions, members of the bar are <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3097250" target="_blank">required to use reasonable care to comply with the Duty of Technology Competence</a>.&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-79493930682805030422018-01-18T13:41:00.000-08:002018-01-18T13:41:55.205-08:00Coming Full Circle: Law Library as Laboratory <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mWBdhlSUlNU/WmEQeLfv8KI/AAAAAAAADZI/Xi-BL67aYXAOelg3lRVWbWWQdxHI-4xrwCLcBGAs/s1600/Langdell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mWBdhlSUlNU/WmEQeLfv8KI/AAAAAAAADZI/Xi-BL67aYXAOelg3lRVWbWWQdxHI-4xrwCLcBGAs/s1600/Langdell.jpg" /></a></div>As we consider an innovative law library of the 21st Century, a few things are self evident:<br /><div><ul><li>Law libraries are <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2015/09/suffolk-law-drastically-cuts-library.html" target="_blank">less about physical materials</a></li><li>Libraries, in general, <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2014/08/library-as-place.html" target="_blank">are much more focused</a> on creating inviting spaces for collaboration and study</li><li>Academic law libraries tend to have at least <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/04/law-libraries-supporting-aba-standards.html" target="_blank">some hand in supporting experiential learning</a>&nbsp;</li></ul><div>Couple these fairly universal truths with a recent article in <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/17/rhode-island-hopes-putting-artificial-intelligence-lab-library-will-expand-ais-reach?utm_source=newsletters&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=2018_01_17&amp;utm_campaign=the_algorithm" target="_blank">Inside Higher Ed about an academic library creating an artificial intelligence lab</a>, and there seems to be something there for law libraries, as well.<br /><br /><i>The 600-square-foot AI lab will be located on the library’s first floor and will offer beginner- to advanced-level tutorials in areas such as robotics, natural language processing, smart cities, smart homes, the internet of things, and big data.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>The lab will also provide a space for faculty members, students and the local community to discuss the social and ethical implications of these technology developments. Faculty may also use the space for teaching, and will be encouraged to incorporate AI topics into their syllabi, said Boughida.</i><br /><br />Could a law library follow similar suit and create "labs" for various hands-on learning opportunities? Might there be a public-interest lab, for example? Would it work to house the law library materials on point within a specific area to facilitate a required "lab" component to a doctrinal class where the faculty or law librarian could provide hands-on experiential learning -- applying the content learned in class (and working as a form of assessment)?<br /><br />In undergrad, I recall many courses having a lab component where we applied what we learned in class. Why aren't we doing more of this in law? There's been an ongoing call for many years for more "<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2014/08/researching-across-curriculum.html" target="_blank">across the curriculum</a>" instruction. Law library labs would be a perfect way to blend doctrinal courses with the research and writing necessary to apply and communicate the law in a way more closely aligned with real-world practice.<br /><br />After all, a common complaint of traditional legal education is that it doesn't actually prepare students for practice. To successfully prepare students for practice, we should continue to bust out of our silos and create programming that builds a true bridge to law practice.<br /><br />In some ways, this would bring us full circle to the foundation of legal education as <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6171&amp;context=faculty_scholarship" target="_blank">Langdell remarked that the law library is the lawyer's laboratory</a>.&nbsp;</div></div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-72271135969199900272018-01-16T09:41:00.001-08:002018-01-16T09:41:34.541-08:00Disruption in Law: Algorithms that Doubt Themselves<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-falnV_UMdls/Wl43vDhAg6I/AAAAAAAADY0/0aNjhle_eI0yJRJSwhHJY4659xGijyDQACLcBGAs/s1600/1_0FlvitTZnPKh8qkJ7UPLeQ.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="700" height="171" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-falnV_UMdls/Wl43vDhAg6I/AAAAAAAADY0/0aNjhle_eI0yJRJSwhHJY4659xGijyDQACLcBGAs/s200/1_0FlvitTZnPKh8qkJ7UPLeQ.png" width="200" /></a></div>After learning more about <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2978703" target="_blank">AI systems and their predicted disruption in law&nbsp;and legal research</a>,&nbsp;one of the most compelling arguments against blindly relying on algorithms is the&nbsp;lack of transparency and underlying probability for error.&nbsp;<div><br /></div><div>This may be less of a concern going forward as the <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609762/google-and-others-are-building-ai-systems-that-doubt-themselves/?utm_source=newsletters&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=2018_01_09&amp;utm_campaign=the_algorithm" target="_blank">MIT Technology Review reports that Google and others are building AI systems that doubt themselves</a>.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Researchers at Uber and Google are working on modifications to the two most popular deep-learning frameworks that will enable them to handle probability. This will provide a way for the smartest AI programs to measure their confidence in a prediction or a decision—essentially, to know when they should doubt themselves.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>The work reflects the realization that uncertainty is a key aspect of human reasoning and intelligence. Adding it to AI programs could make them smarter and less prone to blunders, says Zoubin Ghahramani, a prominent AI researcher who is a professor at the University of Cambridge and chief scientist at Uber.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>David Blei, a professor of statistics and computer science at Columbia University, says combining deep learning and probabilistic programming is a promising idea that needs more work. “In principle, it’s very powerful,” he says. “But there are many, many technical challenges.”</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div><i>In recent years, the neural-network school has been so dominant that other ideas have been all but left behind. To move forward, the field may need to embrace these other ideas. “The interesting story here is that you don’t have to think of these camps as separate,” Goodman says. “They can come together—in fact, they are coming together—in the tools that we are now building.”</i></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Combining conventional neural networks -- systems that learn only from the data they are fed -- with probabilistic programming has the potential to more closely mimic human reasoning. It also provides a way for human users to gauge their confidence in the algorithm's results because the algorithm should supply a confidence ranking.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>While it's wonderful to hear that this work is being done. Human users should be cautiously optimistic.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>For example, IBM Watson for Healthcare is already touted as having the ability to combine deep learning with probabilistic programming to assist with cancer prognosis and treatment. <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/09/05/watson-ibm-cancer/" target="_blank">In practice, however, after three years in the field with the leading cancer centers in the United States, it's still not living up to the hype</a> and has been abandoned by some of those centers.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>As David Blei noted in the MIT Technology Review article, “In principle, it’s very powerful,” he says. “But there are many, many technical challenges.” At this point, in law, we should all take care to understand the challenges associated with AI and <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2018/01/tech-tuesday-duty-of-tech-in.html" target="_blank">comply with our ethical duty to understand the risks and benefits associated with the relevant technology</a>.&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-83841848030097584672018-01-11T14:10:00.000-08:002018-01-11T14:10:18.949-08:00Williston's Resilient Labor of Love A colleague sent me the following image of Samuel Williston with the research -- drafts and notes -- for his venerable treatise:<br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f7vO3V5adGQ/WlPwgZmixOI/AAAAAAAADXo/LQ7HnAcRZmENIuKNlzIF1PTfy2sPf01SQCLcBGAs/s1600/Williston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="632" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f7vO3V5adGQ/WlPwgZmixOI/AAAAAAAADXo/LQ7HnAcRZmENIuKNlzIF1PTfy2sPf01SQCLcBGAs/s320/Williston.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>This is an impressive image of a labor of love. We'll likely never see anything like it again (nor should we, poor trees). Just imagine the countless hours of toiling in the books that Williston (or his research assistants, as it were) undertook to develop <i>the</i> preeminent contracts treatise. This was certainly a golden age for the print-lined walls of the law library.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>It's interesting to look at the tangible work product and understand the research behind it and compare it to what we're likely to see today. While we won't see piles of papers, we'll see documents stored in electronic folders. And while we won't, generally, toil in books, we are still toiling in electronic databases doing the creative analysis required of effective legal research.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>After seeing the image, I was intrigued to read the <a href="https://harvardmagazine.com/2006/01/samuel-williston.html" target="_blank">accompanying article in Harvard Magazine</a>&nbsp;assuming that it would be about his research and writing process. I was surprised to find that it was about Williston's resilience in overcoming mental illness.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><i>In his mid thirties, he suffered a nervous breakdown that caused him to stop work for years at a time. Diagnosed with “neurasthenia,” he took extended leaves of absence, attending different sanitariums in search of a cure. Eventually, with the help of what we would today recognize as a combination of drug and cognitive therapy, he worked his way to a kind of recovery that allowed him to pursue his enormously productive career.</i></div><div><i>. . .</i></div><div><i>Nonetheless, he understood that his breakdown had been a central event in his life and hoped his recovery might show those with similar problems that “some achievement may still be possible after years of incapacity.” His sense of having overcome a potentially career-ending illness probably contributed to the serenity and compassion that people so often remarked on.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i>It didn't surprise me that Williston suffered from mental illness in the legal profession (since it's so pervasive). What did surprise me is how candid he was at a time when it likely would have been considered a weakness. It's so nice that he was able to reflect on his illness and develop a compassion for others.<br /><br />With Williston in mind, it's refreshing to see the <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/students_at_top_law_schools_ask_for_more_mental_health_supports" target="_blank">changes that are taking place in the legal profession today when it comes to mental health and wellness</a>.&nbsp;At my own institution in the last few years, we've seen a greater student emphasis on mental health and wellness. This bodes well for the future of the profession in terms of individual wellness, as well as compassion for others.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-60266218297798834892018-01-09T07:37:00.000-08:002018-02-21T16:51:38.242-08:00The Duty of Tech in the Algorithmic Society<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-Machine/dp/0465065708" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="1000" height="122" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nFiAwBddj5I/WlThBNnOMnI/AAAAAAAADX4/gklQZ8pHsBIYdpI8AWUawB3UxFmwBq71ACLcBGAs/s200/1445374012-the-master-algorithm-pedros-domingos-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />The age of legal tech is upon us. The possibilities are endless, and the <a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2017/12/access-to-justice-through-technology-for-2018/" target="_blank">potential access to justice benefits have never been greater</a>. One thing is certain: law will never be less technologically oriented than it is today.<br /><br />This certainty may induce excitement or fear, but we all should proceed with reasonable care. In fact, it may be an ethical violation not to. <b>The Duty of Technology Competence requires lawyers to keep abreast of “changes in the law and its practice,&nbsp;</b><b>including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” </b>To date, 28 states have adopted the duty.<br /><br />Using reasonable care to understand the benefits and risks associated with relevant technologies is increasingly difficult as society moves beyond the abundance of information that defined the Information Age to increasingly rely on algorithms that sort big data in the Algorithmic Society.<br /><br />The difficulty is in how easily algorithms retrieve "relevant" information. Couple this perceived ease with the shoddy research habits of the Google Generation (those born 1993 and after), and you may have a recipe for disaster.<br /><i><br /></i><i>There have been some interesting findings about the Google Generation's information behavior. As early as 2008, studies&nbsp;</i><i>show that “the speed of young people’s web searching means that little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority.” Additionally, “[f]aced with a long list of search hits, young people find it difficult to assess the relevance of the materials presented and often print off pages with no more than a perfunctory glance at them.” Also, “[y]oung scholars are using tools that require little skill: they appear satisfied with a very simple or basic form of searching." In addition to the user habits of the Google Generation, society, in general, has become increasingly comfortable with relying on the top results that an algorithm generates. <b>“[R]esearch indicates that over ninety percent of searchers do not go past page one of the search results and over fifty percent do not go past the first three results on page one.”</b></i><br /><i><br /></i>These ingrained research habits generally equate with allowing algorithms to do the heavy lifting to decide what is relevant. In law, <i>a user relying on the first page of results in the legal databases may get significant variation in the relevant cases on a particular topic. The user, through hasty searching and vetting of results, has just allowed the algorithm to have a significant role in selecting the cases that the algorithm deems should advance the law.</i><br /><br />The legal academy, including law librarians, must instruct on the pitfalls of blindly relying on algorithms, <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2015/12/bias-in-machine-reading-artificial.html" target="_blank">including issues with machine learning bias</a> and other.<br /><br />For more information and practical tips for instruction, see my latest draft article, <i><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3097250" target="_blank">Beyond the Information Age: The Duty of Technology Competence in the Algorithmic Society</a></i> which will appear in volume 69 of the South Carolina Law Review.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-29739729729061931782018-01-05T13:28:00.001-08:002018-01-05T13:28:56.352-08:00Top 17 for '17: A Year-End Roundup<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qkO5wUPa43U/Wk_r_518nBI/AAAAAAAADV4/27UT-RF3P_UFx2mIzfXqhpeG3k8T_t6jwCLcBGAs/s1600/2017.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="940" height="166" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qkO5wUPa43U/Wk_r_518nBI/AAAAAAAADV4/27UT-RF3P_UFx2mIzfXqhpeG3k8T_t6jwCLcBGAs/s200/2017.png" width="200" /></a></div>Happy New Year! As I plan for the year ahead, it's always interesting to review The Ginger (Law) Librarian's top posts for the previous year. Here is the top 17 for 2017:&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>1.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/05/law-school-rankings-law-libraries.html" target="_blank">Law School Rankings &amp; Law Libraries</a>: When administrators consider programs that directly affect rankings, law libraries are often left out of the equation. Rankings need to change. The perception of a law library's affect on rankings also needs to change.</div><div><br /></div><div>2.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/05/is-it-time-for-legal-research-component.html" target="_blank">Is It Time For a Legal Research Component on the Bar Exam?</a>:&nbsp;While this would require reconceptualizing the bar exam, it would more fully represent what a lawyer actually does in practice. It would also adjust the test to the digital age where the current crop of law students grew up with the ability to find (and USE?) information at their fingertips.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>3. <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/05/rombauer-method-of-legal-research.html" target="_blank">Rombauer Method of Legal Research</a>:&nbsp;Instead of focusing on the various platforms, we should make the students comfortable with a process that works in any database — a process that will become familiar and repetitive to the students and one that they might actually use.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/03/law-libraries-under-cardiac-arrest.html" target="_blank">Law Libraries Under Cardiac Arrest</a>: We've seen the long-standing claim of "law libraries as the heart of the law school" challenged in significant ways. Even as modern law libraries have moved beyond the print collection to a greater focus on creative, effective legal research regardless of format, we are still married to the print in most people's minds.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/04/excuse-me-can-i-have-turn-female-scotus.html" target="_blank">"Excuse Me, Can I Have a Turn?" Female SCOTUS Justices Heavily Interrupted</a>:&nbsp;If it's this bad for arguably some of the most powerful women in the world, imagine what it's like for other women in the legal profession. We need to do better.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>6. <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/04/law-librarians-who-know-code.html" target="_blank">Law Librarians Who (Know) Code</a>:&nbsp;At a recent talk, it was recommended that law librarians learn enough about coding to understand how coding intersects with the organization and retrieval of information. To ensure that our systems function properly, we should all, at minimum, know what a programming language is, how to talk about it, and what coding can and cannot do.</div><div><br /></div><div>7.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/04/the-problem-with-impact-factor-in-law.html" target="_blank">The Problem with Impact Factor in Law</a>:&nbsp;While working as a Faculty Services &amp; Scholarly Communications Librarian, I presume I am not alone in being asked to create an impact factor for which to judge the scholarly work of faculty.</div><div><br /></div><div>8.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/04/law-libraries-supporting-aba-standards.html" target="_blank">Law Libraries Supporting ABA Standards</a>: Law libraries still heavily support the ABA Standards and should be seen as a valuable resource as law schools try to meet the new standards.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>9.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/03/arthur-miller-articulates-importance-of.html" target="_blank">Arthur Miller Articulates the Importance of Legal Research</a>:&nbsp;When we are in the midst of being bombarded with the various microaggressions that are commonplace as a law librarian in the law school hierarchy, we might lose sight of why we do this.</div><div><br /></div><div>10. <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/07/law-librarians-improving-profession.html" target="_blank">Law Librarians Improving the Profession</a>:&nbsp;One of the best things about AALL is meeting all of the wonderful people in the profession and feeling re-energized about tackling these issues. Let's use the momentum until we meet again next summer in Baltimore (with John Waters!).&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>11.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/07/analysis-in-legal-research.html" target="_blank">Analysis in Legal Research</a>:&nbsp;Too often, searching for relevant information and the ultimate analysis of facts to law is disjointed. That's because teaching the analysis of the law is often left up to the doctrinal professors or the writing professors.</div><div><br /></div><div>12.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/08/law-libraries-retaining-talent.html" target="_blank">Law Libraries Retaining Talent</a>:&nbsp;While at AALL Management Institute last spring, one of the other attendees asked Maureen Sullivan, our fearless leader and management expert, how law libraries can stop "hemorrhaging talent."</div><div><br /></div><div>13.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/02/designing-law-library-learning-space.html" target="_blank">Designing a Law Library Learning Space</a>: Most law library planning decisions are based on some qualitative data - like gate counts and check-out stats. But these decisions are also often based on library trends across the country without truly taking into account the individual needs of the local community.</div><div><br /></div><div>14.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/02/practical-considerations-for-law.html" target="_blank">Practical Considerations for Law Librarianship as Career</a>:&nbsp;For anyone with an intellectually curious mind, you truly can't beat this profession.</div><div><br /></div><div>15.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/03/a-concerted-effort-to-collect-law.html" target="_blank">A Concerted Effort to Collect Law Library Statistics</a>:&nbsp;While this information will no longer be part of the ABA annual questionnaire, it still behooves law libraries to maintain statistics for benchmarking purposes. ALLStAR may just be the concerted effort that we need to fill this impending gap in our information.</div><div><br /><div><div>16.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/09/the-dark-side-of-open-access-publishing.html" target="_blank">The Dark Side of Open Access Publishing</a>:&nbsp;Normally, I am a staunch advocate for open-access (OA) publishing. But with a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (sub. req'd.), it became clear that advocating for OA publishing without mentioning the possible pitfalls is irresponsible.</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>17.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/11/the-aba-self-study-law-library.html" target="_blank">The ABA Self-Study: Law Library Leadership Must Articulate Contributions to Program of Legal Education</a>:&nbsp;Law library leadership working on ABA Site Visits must ensure that our contributions to the program of legal education are clearly spelled out in the Self-Assessment. If we don't act to articulate the vast contributions of the law library to the program of legal education, we could continue to see the law library's importance shrink to oblivion.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Law librarianship is such a wonderful, varied profession with so much to discuss. I look forward to a robust 2018 with many new posts on a wide variety of topics. If you see anything of particular interest, please send it my way at jamie.baker@ttu.edu.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you for your continued readership. Here's to a wonderful 2018!&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-67930845650697028062017-12-06T16:06:00.000-08:002017-12-11T13:50:12.108-08:00Law Librarian Status & Academic Freedom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u5DvmQ1P5qI/WiiFepdxjFI/AAAAAAAACwk/uaecFmEv0BQ6BBeaGyNa_mJj_pN412BRgCLcBGAs/s1600/caged-mind-illustration_csp22597424.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="174" height="196" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u5DvmQ1P5qI/WiiFepdxjFI/AAAAAAAACwk/uaecFmEv0BQ6BBeaGyNa_mJj_pN412BRgCLcBGAs/s200/caged-mind-illustration_csp22597424.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>We know <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/08/law-libraries-retaining-talent.html" target="_blank">that law librarians lack status</a> in the <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2016/01/lesser-in-law-schools-post-promotion.html" target="_blank">status-obsessed legal academy</a>. Some could argue that this is a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2673588" target="_blank">gender equity problem</a>, with&nbsp;females making up the overwhelming majority of law librarians (another post for another time).<br /><br />But the lack of status also confers a lack of <a href="https://www.aacu.org/about/statements/academic-freedom" target="_blank">academic freedom</a> to engage in tough conversations. This is particularly difficult for law librarians because we are not protected to fully <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2015/12/critical-librarianship-or-critlib.html" target="_blank">engage with and advance our field</a>. A field that is <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2016/11/librarianship-as-profession.html" target="_blank">wrongly pegged as supplementary or secondary</a>.<br /><br />In the era of big-data algorithms with no accountability and the "fake news" phenomenon, librarians must tackle tough, controversial subjects that affect information. And law librarians take the ethical use of information very seriously with the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework#introduction" target="_blank">&nbsp;ACRL Framework for Information Literacy</a> emphasizing the role of “using information, data, and scholarship ethically” and the <a href="https://www.aallnet.org/Archived/Leadership-Governance/policies/PublicPolicies/policy-lawstu.html" target="_blank">AALL Legal Research Competencies and Standards</a> stating that a successful legal researcher “distinguishes between ethical and unethical uses of information.” Finally, <a href="https://lawlibrary.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/images/docs/2009_boulder_statement_on_legal_research_education.pdf" target="_blank">The Boulder Statement on Legal Research Education</a> specifies that legal research instruction should include “an ongoing examination of professional standards, including the identification of ethical responsibilities.”<br /><br />However, our lack of status precludes us from fully engaging in conversations surrounding controversial issues because we lack the institutional support to do so.<br /><br />And if our institutions don't support us, who will? Our associations? The associations are also concerned with their lack of protection. <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2017/12/05/lexisnexiss-role-in-ice-surveillance-librarian-ethics/" target="_blank">They are cautious with criticizing the major legal databases, for example, for fear of the lawsuits that may result.</a>&nbsp;Even if those <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ibm-immigration/ibm-urged-to-avoid-working-on-extreme-vetting-of-u-s-immigrants-idUSKBN1DG1VT" target="_blank">legal databases are partaking in unethical behavior</a>. By the way, <a href="https://llb2.com/2017/12/11/ice/" target="_blank">here's the full-text of the post</a> that was pulled from the RIPS Blog.<br /><br />So if not our institutions and if not our associations, how are we protected to openly discuss the hard issues affecting the information that is the foundation of the legal profession?Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-18195103540106633462017-11-30T13:45:00.000-08:002017-11-30T14:13:46.054-08:00Artificial Intelligence in Law Schools: Busting the Silo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZZIdQi1_eYU/WiB6d_jm0bI/AAAAAAAACwA/RDbMko1-I1o5bfNFhX3L0VwektB6K2RKQCLcBGAs/s1600/2015-1448929395.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="1600" height="161" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZZIdQi1_eYU/WiB6d_jm0bI/AAAAAAAACwA/RDbMko1-I1o5bfNFhX3L0VwektB6K2RKQCLcBGAs/s400/2015-1448929395.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>As we further consider how to <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/11/training-lawyers-for-algorithmic-society.html" target="_blank">train future lawyers for the Algorithmic Society</a> and develop the quality of thinking, listening, relating, collaborating, and learning that will define smartness in this new age, law schools must reach beyond their storied walls.<br /><div><br />In law, we must got beyond talking about algorithmic implications to actually help shape algorithmic performance. We need lawyers and programmers to work together to create a sound "machine learning corpus." There's potential for an entirely new subfield to emerge if given the right support. With many law school attached to major research universities, it's a great place to start this cross-pollination and interdisciplinary work.<br /><br />This type of interdisciplinary work would help to satisfy <i><a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Breaking-Professional-Schools/239937?key=gsJGLTrc0E7aWqq9G6kbgXk7BVlANcDr7FxdoASy1ShwrZ8VCPcjcczV354a7rTRdzZYWG5EOUxENlBUZ29QZ1c0NDNBZFZnYXV0Q180cXR2VVFVSUt0Zy1vcw" target="_blank">the career aspirations of </a>advanced-degree seekers but also the wishes of many college presidents, deans, and faculty members who see an interdisciplinary professional education as a path to greater relevance, higher enrollments, and students better equipped to deal with the modern world’s tangle of problems.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>"The world is becoming more interdisciplinary and is forcing us to change to reflect it. The marketplace is telling us that students need to be well-versed in their discipline, but also technologically competent."</i><br /><i><br /></i>This is particularly difficult for professional schools as <i>faculty members and administrators are more likely to have become used to running professional programs in the same way for decades. Remaking programs to teach more than one discipline hasn’t been easy.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />There are a few law schools, however, that have created hybrid legal majors to help reverse enrollment declines. Northwestern is a prime example. <i>"We needed to advance our standing in the legal world by meeting its demand for T-shaped professionals — people who exhibit a deep grounding in foundational law but also knowledge of another discipline," says Daniel Rodriguez, the dean. "We saw interdisciplinary education as a marketing opportunity."</i><br /><i><br /></i><a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/04/law-librarians-who-know-code.html" target="_blank">Like the recommendation that law librarians learn enough about coding</a> to understand and teach how computer science intersects with the organization and retrieval of information, <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/01/ai-duty-of-technological-competence.html" target="_blank">lawyers also need a basic understanding of important technology going forward</a>.<br /><br />But beyond basic understanding, we also need those who are trained in law to be on the front lines of working with the programmers to ensure reliable information retrieval that is <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2015/12/bias-in-machine-reading-artificial.html" target="_blank">free from bias.</a>&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-52736326667724364672017-11-21T08:11:00.000-08:002017-11-21T08:39:24.187-08:002018 A Legal Research OdysseyLaw Library Journal has accepted my manuscript for <i><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2978703" target="_blank">2018 A Legal Research Odyssey: Artificial Intelligence as Disruptor</a>.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AkwAavwqasQ/WhRP9lBPD-I/AAAAAAAACvg/bUWFscUk8AUGfX4VkqmmGmGbKsalc8l5ACLcBGAs/s1600/2001-lead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="750" height="209" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AkwAavwqasQ/WhRP9lBPD-I/AAAAAAAACvg/bUWFscUk8AUGfX4VkqmmGmGbKsalc8l5ACLcBGAs/s320/2001-lead.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>The abstract:</b><br /><i>Cognitive computing is revolutionizing finance through the ability to combine structured and unstructured data and provide precise market analysis. It is also revolutionizing medicine by providing well-informed options for diagnoses. Analogously, ROSS, a progeny of IBM’s Watson, is set to revolutionize the legal field by bringing cognitive computing to legal research. While ROSS is currently being touted as possessing the requisite sophistication to perform effortless legal research, there is a real danger in a technology like ROSS causing premature disruption. As in medicine and finance, cognitive computing has the power to make legal research more efficient. But the technology is not ready to replace the need for law students to learn sound legal research process and strategy. When done properly, legal research is a highly creative skill that requires a deep level of analysis. Law librarians must infuse law students with an understanding of legal research process, as well as instruct on the practical aspects of using artificial intelligence responsibly in the face of algorithmic transparency, the duty of technology competence, malpractice pitfalls, and the unauthorized practice of law.</i><br /><br />The article is helpful for its in-depth discussion of DeepQA and <a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2016/12/ai-as-premature-law-librarian-disruptor.html" target="_blank">natural language processing</a>, and how these technologies are being used in the various professions, including law. The article also discusses the notion of premature disruption -- whereby the technology is not truly ready to do what the PR campaigns tout.<br /><br />It goes on to discuss the various pitfalls associated with the use of algorithms in law, including ethical considerations such as:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2015/12/bias-in-machine-reading-artificial.html" target="_blank">Algorithmic transparency</a></li><li><a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2017/01/ai-duty-of-technological-competence.html" target="_blank">The Duty of Technology Competence</a></li><li>Supervisory duties</li><li><a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2014/08/teaching-technology-to-law-students.html" target="_blank">Malpractice</a></li><li><a href="http://www.gingerlawlibrarian.com/2014/05/unauthorized-practice-of-law-for.html" target="_blank">The Unauthorized Practice of Law</a></li></ul><div>Ultimately, the article posits that law librarians are in the best position to teach on the various issues surrounding the use of algorithms in law because we are often on the frontlines of teaching how to use the very technologies that employ the use of algorithms in legal research. It goes on to state that with so much at stake,&nbsp;<a href="http://epubs.aallnet.org/i/578386-aall-spectrum-september-october-2015-volume-20-number-1/0?m4=" target="_blank">law librarians must take their role seriously of assessing and curating information quality</a> and teaching prospective lawyers to do the same.&nbsp;</div><br />Look for it in the Winter 2018 edition of the Law Library Journal!<br /><br />Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0